What do you think of the hole? - is the question that Peter Steinmetz's action put to passers-by in Friedrichsplatz. He stood in front of the building site with a table and a few hundred photos showing the drilling tower and its surroundings. Viewers had the same view that was visible reality in the background repeated in front of them, now reduced and in two dimensions. All the passers-by then had a chance to write and draw on the photographs. So a broad picture of various opinions, emerged alongside the lively discussion about de Maria's work during the action.These opinion-pictures represent a documentation of public opinion about this subject.

I came across photos and text about the "Was halten Sie vom Loch?" (What do you think of the hole?) action in the documenta archive. This find was the start of my own contribution to the exhibition. I got in touch with Peter Steinmetz. I was curious to read more comments from the general public, but unfortunately the original photos had got lost. The only documents that still exist are a few photos showing the action as such. One of them shows forty-two pictures with opinions written on them. My work was triggered by these comments, which according to Peter Steinmetz provide a fair cross-section of the public response. They assumed the role of the libretto in the composition, and thus became an important part of the score. I found out while talking to Peter Steinmetz that he was a supporter of de Maria's action himself, and that when documenta was over Manfred Schneckenberger had asked him to show the results of his own action in the Fridericianum.

The composition called "Was halten Sie vom Loch?" is a musical walk through the documenta 6 sculpture exhibition. The expedition starts with Walter de Maria's work Erdkilometer and ends with Ansgar Nierhoff's "Plastische Kreuzung" (Sculpture Junction). Works by artists including Richard Serra, Dolores Pacileo, Stuart Brisley and Richard Fleischner were set to music on the way. The libretto is transformed into a song-speech composition for a chorus of eight. The score consists of tonal and graphic notation. Double bass, piano and percussion set the interplay between the works of art and their position in the outdoor space to music. The speakers read texts by the documenta director, critical essays and artist's essays.

Text is taken from the Catalogue: Archive in Motion, documenta, 2006.