Nothing’s going to hap­pen to us… was com­mis­si­o­ned by Vrijstaat O for the 2014 Private Shelter exhi­bi­ti­on at the Atlantic Wall in Raversyde, Ostend (BE). It was shown in one of the Atlantic Wall’s bun­kers. The pie­ce is an instal­la­ti­on in which video and sound col­li­de. It inves­ti­ga­tes how our per­cep­ti­ons of an armed con­flict rela­te to a lived rea­li­ty. For Nothing’s going to hap­pen to us… Stijn inter­vie­wed peo­p­le who had spent some time in con­tem­po­ra­ry con­flict zones, and tal­ked with them about the sounds they heard, and the emo­ti­ons tho­se sounds eli­cit. From the­se inter­views he took one sto­ry and asked some sound desig­ners with a lot of expe­rien­ce in desig­ning the sound for acti­on movies, to tell him how they would design the sound for this par­ti­cu­lar sce­ne. By con­fron­ting the­se two per­spec­ti­ves Nothing’s going to hap­pen to us… wants to research the no man’s land bet­ween ima­gi­ned emo­ti­ons on the one hand and real memo­ries on the other. Between an arti­fi­ci­al ​‘pre­sen­ta­ti­on’ of danger, and an authen­tic, lived memo­ry of it.

At the same time the instal­la­ti­on also refers to Flanders own his­to­ry by using the sound of explo­ding WWI and WWII bombs. To this day DOVO, the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group of the Belgian army, still finds and neu­tra­li­ses around 3000 bombs per year from both world wars. They are buried in the soil, as silent wit­nes­ses, hid­den memo­ri­als. When DOVO dis­po­ses of the­se explo­si­ve rem­nants, they blow them up in a con­trol­led man­ner. Stijn recor­ded the sound of the­se explo­si­ons. The instal­la­ti­on also refers to con­tem­po­ra­ry con­flicts by using sounds from cur­rent or very recent con­flict zones as well. Recordings from, amongst others, con­flicts in Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The sounds of the­se bombs and batt­le­fields aren’t heard direct­ly, but are modu­la­ting the voi­ces of the peo­p­le spea­king, enfor­cing a cha­o­tic fra­me­work on the memo­ries and per­cep­ti­ons of the tes­ti­mo­nies. All three per­spec­ti­ves are deli­ve­r­ed to the audien­ce at the same time, using a sur­round sound setup. The voi­ces are cut up by the modu­la­ti­on and they tell their sto­ries over, under and against one ano­ther. The spec­ta­tor needs to con­struct his or her own sto­ry from the con­ti­nuous entang­le­ment of infor­ma­ti­on deli­ve­r­ed to him.

Nothing’s going to hap­pen to us… is shown in an under­ground bun­ker of the Atlantik Wall and the­re, bet­ween the­se three very dis­tinct ver­si­ons of rea­li­ty, the listener’s own pri­va­te shel­ter takes shape.