»The ultrasound of therapy« concept comes from an ancient French hospital, known as "La Salle des Malades". The first version, however was presented in Ljubljana, Slovenia at the Kapelica Gallery as part of "Bitshift", a cycle of sound events, between 27 and 30 October . It is an installation consisting of individual sound therapies intended to give an individual and personal sonic experience. These will be made by us, but we have invited others too , Simon Wickham-Smith,Lynn Pook and the film-maker Ulrich Miller. For the future we want to develop 3 new sound therapies and over the years, expand it with other contributions and adjust existing therapies based on the experience we make over time.
The ultrasound of therapy starts with an 'intake'. Here a nurse or a doctor will enter all relevant data in to a patient's form, including name, address, date of birth, profession, relevant habits, etc. Then the patient will be placed in/or strapped onto a hospital bed, visually isolated by hospital curtains. The sound therapy will vary in time and treatment: since each patient is different, s/he will be individually treated and instructed. Some therapies will be relaxing, others energising or even disturbing.

Sound medicine and treatments which were used are:
1. Aqua Elise: an acoustic treatment made by two toy music instruments driven by water power. One bass shaker is mounted under the bed.
2. Falung Song: a edited video of Falung Gong meditation is placed under the bed, and a hole is made in the mattress with a Chinese's Buddha chant machine that plays Buddhist loops on headphones, one bass shaker is mounted under the bed.
3. Hot Shaking: a bed treated with an electrical blanket and a massage machine is controlled by sound via light organ, AEG takes body sounds and two bass shaker are mounted under the bed, a sound track of 70’s porno is heard through headphones.
4. Digital See: a set of ventilators and two sanding machines, mounted under the bed are controlled by different sound channels via light organ plus a stroboscope and a soundtrack made by Kozo Inada is on the headphones.
5. Riders on the storm: a video loop is placed under the bed and a hole is made in the mattress one sanding machine is mounted under the bed controlled by sound and a different composition of Kozo Inada is on the headphones .
6. Smith & Wickham: four sine waves of varying amplitudes are played simultaneously with a combination of pink, white and brown noise. The selection of the specific frequencies is made in consultation with the doctor and is based upon the Indo-Tibetan theory of vadacakra.
7. Raplapla: a 14-channel audiotactile soundinstallation, in which the body becomes a resonator, from within which the patient, lying on a hammock, hears prerecorded sounds played by a computer system.
number 1 to 5 are made by Staalplaat Soundsystem, number 6 is made by, Simon Wickham-Smith (London) and number 7 by Lynn Pook (France)

Separate from the individual sounds, an overall sound is created for the whole space, unifying it into one sound installation.
This sound will be transmitted to radios mounted in the space and to speakers in the room and some special bass shakers mounted under the beds.

Doctors on duty:
Carlo Crovato(UK)-website
Geert-jan Hobijn(NL)-here
Lynn Pook(FR)-website
Simon Wickham-Smith(UK)-website

Comments of patients:
1. Aqua Elise
-"Naima felt very good! For me it was very familiar but also very sad".
Tomae & Naima Grom [32 / 8 months, musician/baby]
- "It was a relaxing experience, full of ritual sounds, that start to effect after some minutes or so.."
Mateve Cassermann [21 student]
-"strange music and I feel like that I am crazy. I didn't like it at all".
Luca Eberlinc [16 student]
2. Falung song
- "Mild euphoric".
Paddy Bloomer [27 plumber]
- "I don't really know what my opinion is, I just enjoyed it".
Carmen Larraz [26 dancer]
-"quite boring? it's better to look from the outside sorry...."
Jelka Ciblennech [24 student]
3. Hot shaking
-"I felt like foetus in mother's body, it was very hot and comfortable felt like soul left the body uuuu".
Eva Mlinar [18 student]
- "feels like being a part of the machine".
Nevenka Sivavec [41 arts curator]
4. Digital see
- "it was obvious to me that I'm in an aggressive almost hostile environment I was anxious at the beginning and almost aggressive at the end".
Juris Krpan [43 curator]
-'relaxing, fresh, a trip with a train in a stormy day, feels great".
Nika Zupanc [30 industrial designer]
5. Riders on the storm
-"looking in to the monitor I had the feeling of flying over the earth and suddenly falling down,drowning into the pixels of the monitor"
Sandra Sajovic [27 art historian]
-" I feel more relaxed and actually the feeling of floating in the sound that I got, made me more sensitive to the surroundings. enjoyed it a lot."
Sasa Spacal [25 student]
6. Smith & Wickham
-"It felt good. only the sounds of other people were a bit disturbing, I guess it would be better if I'd have more time- I think I just started to feel some physical influence"
Ales Zrnie [33 professor]
- " It's great experience. Doctor made right decisions- my diagnose was so ammm stomach ache. I had stomach ache for 10 day. now I'm so happy/ grateful / healthy".
Kovac Jernej [28]
7. Raplapla
- "a nice twinkling sound massage- first feeling like a typewriter medicine, then as being a victim of acid rain drilling through my bones and at the end the entire body being washed".
Luka Zagoricnik [29]

We consider this as work in progress and want this concept to develop over the years, adjust existing therapies based on the experience we make and expand it with contributions of other artists.

supported by Gaudeamus Foundation Contemporary Music Center and de Ambassade van het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden (the Dutch Embassy)
There were two TV transmisions and some radio.

documentation from Garage Festival Stralsund-The Ultrasound of Therapy -Augustus 22 till Juli 13 2005

Original Concept