Hard Times – Soft Sounds
Moritz Simon Geist, 2021-2025
Seashell, motor, Aluminium | Sound piece
Hard Times – Soft Sounds is an intimate sound installation that shows oceanic objects as an ecological sound instrument. Around 20 found, gifted, and second-hand seashells from all over the world are filled with water and put into slow motion by a motors, thus making unheard ASMR-inspired sounds. No loudspeakers or microphones are used - instead, each shell becomes its own acoustic instrument.
Until discovered by a friend, this sound was an mostly unknown phenomena: the rotating shell brings air bubbles into motion, resulting in a fragile, repetitive, ever changing tone that recall ASMR textures and invites to deep, close listening. Please listen to the video to hear how it sounds.
It was built during the pandemic as a reflection on slowness, repetition, and the fragile role of beauty in hard times. The work now unfolds as a post-digital meditation on ecology and technology. Each shell–water–motor system functions as a tiny, low-energy “data node,” where material differences (size, shape, volume) resulat in a different sound behaviour. Together they form a landscape of micro-oceans, quietly referencing threatened coastlines, tourism, extraction, and changing seas.
The work has been exhibited at Onassis Stegi, Athens 2024 and the KIKK Festival 2025, Namur and has circulated online, where videos of the shell have reached more than 50 million viewers
Past Exhibitions
2025 Exhibition @ Plásmata III
Onassis Athens
2025 Exhibition @ KIKK Festival
Foto & Video: Robert Arnold
Model: Alphonsine Koh
Team: Jonas Engelhardt
Hard Times - Soft Sounds (Foto: Pinelopi Gerasimou for Onassis Stegi)