The Sound of the Multitude is dedicated to the exploration of the potential of the sonic realm, not only within the spectrum of high fidelity but in its affective dimensions and influential role in a wide-range of socio-political and cultural contexts.

Nik Nowak transformed a shipping container – that emblem par excellence of our globally and temporally-entangled 24/7 world of the constant, anonymous machinic processes of hyper-capitalism and the accelerated movement of commodities – into a large-scale mobile sound sculpture that, as a public participatory and collaborative installation, temporarily declares whichever location a place for discursive exchange, musical and acoustic intervention.

The project is based upon, and activates, a complex sound system sculpture. Its intricate complexity renders it more comparable to an open-ended and collaborative electronic instrument than to merely a speaker of outsized yet passive proportions. It is the latest and largest installment to a series of "mobile" sound system sculptures that the artist Nik Nowak has been creating over the past twenty years. The critically acclaimed, internationally exhibited companion pieces of the series include Panzer (2011), Mantis (2019) and Guo Guo Hawker (2023).

In our digital age, sound-based media has proven itself to be not only an extraordinarily adaptable means through which to build communities and networks, but also as a tool for creating resistance and emancipatory movements. The project aims at bringing this potential back to the analog public space.