In her exhibition Liminal State(less), Tini Aliman explores the state of ambiguity, disorientation and transition. The artist considers socio-topographical borders and transit zones as deeply political sites and actions. She examines the turbulent coexistence of social infrastructures and various ecosystems that surround urban space. The artist contemplates the feeling of displacement and homesickness – a state of “liminality” and in-between spaces when one’s own body seeks to find balance in a new urban or social ecosystem.

In her exhibition, Tini Aliman brings together various discarded pieces of furniture that the artist found during her walks through the city. What all these different objects have in common is a supposed uselessness, with the potential to embody an archive of urban and environmental soundscapes – caused by technological obsolescence or aesthetic re-evaluation.

Tini Aliman arranges these devalued remnants into an organic cluster in the exhibition space and induces an electromagnetic tension during a performance on the opening evening. She connects her own body to the installation and generates sounds through various contact actions, which are amplified by loudspeakers. The exhibition space thus becomes a resonating body for an intuitive body-sound language. The artist attaches particular importance to the perception mechanisms of individual sounds and the supposed silence in between.

The process of selecting various objects, achieved by traversing and exploring Berlin and its surroundings, requires a new kind of attention and distraction. Tini Aliman has chosen to listen in order to explore music and sound through synaesthetic approaches, and in her exhibition at Künstlerhaus Bethanien designs an acoustic order from the disharmonious rhythms of the perceived objects. In the transformational process between sculpture and instrument, between form and sound, the intimate, physical potential of the objects becomes tangible.

Tini Aliman is a sound artist and composer, field recordist and audio engineer who works at the intersection of theatre and film sound design, live sound art performances, sound installation, and collaborative projects. Her research interests include but are not limited to, ethnomusicology, spatial acoustics, bio-music, cartographical sonic epistemology and the representability of noise and sound.

Tini Aliman is a stipend of the National Arts Council Singapore.