Maryanne Amacher American composer and installation artist Date of Birth: 25.02.1938 Country: USA

1. Biography of Marianne Amacher
2. Early Career
3. City Links and Sound Installations
4. Contributions to Acoustics
5. Later Career and Recognition

Biography of Marianne Amacher

Marianne Amacher was born on February 25, 1938, in Kane, Pennsylvania. She was the only child of an American nurse and a Swiss railroad worker, who serviced freight trains. During her childhood, Amacher learned to play the piano. She left Kane to attend the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1964.

Early Career

During her years as a student, Amacher studied composition under George Rochberg and Karlheinz Stockhausen. She later pursued a graduate degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she wrote her thesis on acoustics and computer science.

City Links and Sound Installations

In 1967, while at the University of Buffalo, Amacher developed the project "City Links: Buffalo," which can be considered an early example of telematics preceding the famous works of Max Neuhaus. In each case, Amacher used the frequency range of 0-15,000 Hz to connect the sound environment of different locations. She utilized multiple speakers to create a "structure of noise," altering the "soundscape." Through the use of diffuse sound sources, Amacher created psychoacoustic illusions of sound forms, working with ultrahigh frequencies. Her early works are best represented in three multimedia installation series developed in the United States, Europe, and Japan: "CITY LINKS" (since 1967), "MUSIC FOR SOUND JOINED ROOMS" (since 1980), and the new multimedia project "MINI-SOUND SERIES," featuring unique architectural structures.

Contributions to Acoustics

Amacher focused on a physiological phenomenon called "otoacoustic emission," where the ears themselves act as sound-generating devices. She described this phenomenon as follows: "When music is played at the right sound level, high enough and exciting enough, the tones of the music cause the ears to act as neurophonic instruments, emitting sounds that seem to come directly from one's head." Amacher's audience discovered that they reproduced the tonal dimension of the music, interacting melodically, rhythmically, and spatially with the sounds in the room. She aimed to release this music created by the listener themselves.

Later Career and Recognition

Amacher received a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in 1988 and won the "Prix Ars Electronica" prize in 2005 for her project "TEO! A sonic sculpture" in the field of electronic and interactive art. At the time of her death, she was working on a commission for the EMPAC center in Troy, New York. For the last ten years of her life, Amacher taught aspiring Masters of Fine Arts students at Bard College. Despite her accomplishments, Amacher never held a full-time job after working as a machinist in the early 1960s. She lived in a small rundown house in Kingston, New York until her passing.