2025: Solvogn / Sun Charriot

Solvogn (Sun Chariot) is an electro-mechanical sound installation. The central element of the piece is a mechanical instrument consisting of four large gongs, which are activated by electronic activated mallets and electronically vibrating devices. These gongs form the sides of the piece and are illuminated as large, pulsating solar disks. The ethereal and rich tone of the plates, combined with the mallets’ percussive and consonant gestures, creates a distinctive sonic expression. The piece is designed to explore a near-unison sound universe, where small variations in pitch and timbre, combined with auditory and acoustic illusions, come into play.

The visual concept of the work is inspired by the cryostatic cooling systems of quantum computers and the Danish national treasure, the Sun Chariot (Solvognen). Large, round gilded disks hang horizontally in the center of the work, each depicting mythological scenes of the sun’s journey across the sky, inspired by the Danish Bronze Age. Industrial quantum computers are often built with large gilded disks intended to direct heat away from the core of the machinery. This results in a machine that points both backwards in history and forward into the future, resembling the Bronze Age artifacts found across Eurasia and large bronze or brass gongs, such as those found in a gamelan orchestra.

As a listener and experiencer of Solvogn, one is met with the clear ringing of metal and a tangle of sonic eruptions, like solar storms breaking through the exhibition space. The visual aspect gives the sensation of sharing space with a mechanical celestial body—framed and supported by high-tech science and Danish Bronze Age history.

3,400 years ago, the original Sun Chariot was placed in a bog in northwestern Zealand in Denmark. The Sun Chariot depicts the eternal journey of the sun, drawn by a divine horse. Since its excavation in 1904, it has been equally surrounded by national pride and mystery. In my work Solvogn, I address humanity’s curiosity and need to describe its surroundings, across history. The original Sun Chariot is amongst the most well known and recognizable danish national treasures.

Quantum computers are associated with a technological hope—a hope to tame an unfathomable physical phenomenon and analyze the formation of wind and weather, extreme cosmic events, and ships’ navigation across the world’s oceans—topics that are, to a greater or lesser extent, also reflected in the bronze age Sun Chariot.

The quantum computer is also connected to a technological fear of irreversible development, which will forever change our world—just as the animistic forces of the Bronze Age governed nature. In this way, these two ‘technologies,’ the Sun Chariot and the quantum computer, mirror each other across history and embody humanity’s drive to explain the world around us.

The treatment of science and history through art and music is, in my view, essential. Art can convey otherwise inaccessible material and, even more so, illuminate aspects that are otherwise unseen: humanity’s curiosity, the poetry within it, and the consequences of this striving. Likewise, something interesting happens when high technology is juxtaposed with early human history. The Sun Chariot represents a nascent start to science, where the dream of explaining the world around us has always driven us forward. Therefore, as part of the production of Solvogn, a series of interviews with quantum physicists and archaeologists have been planned. These interviews will be published in connection with the work’s presentation and future exhibitions.

The piece is supported by the Danish Arts Foundation and the Danish Composers’ Association.