Knud Viktor

Danish Sound Artist and Field Recording Pioneer

Knud Viktor (1924 - 2013, born in Copenhagen) was a Danish recordist and sound artist. Viktor was a pioneer of phonography and sound ecology. Formerly a painter but also a photographer and a film maker, Viktor wanted to picture the landscape by capturing the impact of the intense light and sounds upon animals. He spent most of his life trying to capture the tiny sound of animals and the sound of erosion on the rocks of Régalon (Lubéron, France) where he lived for almost 40 years. Viktor considered the rural landscape of Lubéron as an open territory with its own idiosyncratic acoustic signature. Viktor's methodology of work involved long periods of deep listening before placing his microphones at the right point of ear. "I don't pretend to make music, even if what I hear in nature is produced by forces that seek harmony. I see what I do as a continuation of the painting, surveying sounds that organises sonic intensities most unattendedly, contrastingly, modulated and dissonant. I try to create an enhanced sensation via the sounds, the air, the light, the wind, the rain, the rocks, the vegetation, the smells of Lubéron". Since 1964, Knud Viktor has worked on a series of pieces called "image sonore" in which Image X was recently exhibited at "Musée Réattu" (Arles, France) from July 8 to November 29 of 2009.