What does the source of drinking water sound like?
What does the source of Innsbruck’s drinking water sound like? And what changes when a foodstuff is experienced not through images or taste, but through sound?
Set against the backdrop of the banks of the Inn, traffic noise and walking paths, an art installation invites visitors to immerse themselves in the soundscape of a very special foodstuff. The “Audio Connection to the Source” takes you on an acoustic journey deep into the mountains surrounding the Tyrolean capital, bringing to life the sound portraits of the nine water sources that ensure Innsbruck’s drinking water supply.
A disused telephone box is transformed into a work of art, positioned within the urban space and repurposed as an audio installation.
Bosko Gastager in ‘Hörverbindung zur Quelle’ (An Audio Connection to the Source), an audio journey to the origins of Innsbruck’s drinking water.© Udo Frizzi, 2026
Where is the art installation?
You’ll find it on the banks of the Inn near the Kneipp facility at the Lodenareal:
What do I experience when I listen to Innsbruck’s springs?
Nine audio recordings can be accessed via a telephone with dial-in numbers. Each number is assigned to a spring that forms part of Innsbruck’s drinking water supply. When the number is dialled, the connection is established: the respective spring can be heard through the telephone receiver.
The gentle dripping, steady trickling, and powerful flow, along with the resonances in rock and cavities, coalesce into acoustic landscapes. Listening evokes mental images of those places in the mountains around Innsbruck where the water springs forth. By making its sources audible, water no longer appears as a resource taken for granted, but as part of a living process – as movement, change and an expression of a larger ecological context.
The work makes the elemental world of water acoustically accessible and opens up a sensory approach to an essential elixir of life. The “Auditory Connection to the Source” directs our attention to the origin of our drinking water and allows us to perceive a seemingly self-evident resource in a different way than usual. This creates a form of engagement based less on information and more on experience.
Kata Hinterlechner and Bosko Gastager next to the ‘Audio Link to the Source’ – an acoustic connection to the origins of Innsbruck’s drinking water.© Udo Frizzi, 2026
Who is responsible for the ‘Audio Link to the Source’?
Further information about the artists and the partnership with the Tyrolean Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired can be found here:
telephone© Lea Stoll
Accessible access to the art installation© Lea Stoll
Text: Mag.a Lea Stoll, MA, Head of Public Relations and Fundraising at BSVT, art historian and curator of the project; Bosko Gastager and Kata Hinterlechner, artists; adapted by the web editorial team.