S C H N I T T W H I T E B A L A N C E

In White Balance, SCHNITT investigate the perceptual and symbolic dimension of white as a threshold — a space of transition between the visible and the audible, between presence and absence. The project originates from the photographic notion of white balance, the operation that calibrates the color temperature of light to render reality “correctly”. SCHNITT reinterprets this technical procedure as a metaphor for perceptual translation, transferring it from the visual to the audiovisual domain. Here, the balance is no longer a matter of chromatic correction, but of relational equilibrium between light and sound, between the digital and the real, between human gesture and machine response. Drawing on the radical minimalism of Robert Ryman’s “white paintings”, the duo explore the idea of white not as absence, but as totality and potential — a space that contains all frequencies of light, and by extension, all sonic possibilities. The performance unfolds as an act of subtractive purification, an attempt to reach an essential audiovisual condition freed from narrative, representation, or emotional surplus.

The performance inverts the conventional hierarchy between image and sound. Instead of sound shaping the image, White Balance lets light become the generator of sound. Four video projectors emit modulated white pulses toward four photosensitive sensors, each of which translates variations in brightness into electronic signals. These signals are processed in real time, composing the evolving sound structure of the piece. This setup creates a feedback ecosystem between the performers, the light sources, and the reactive devices. On stage, the duo perform within this fragile system, where every movement of light affects the sound field, and every sonic variation feeds back into the visual rhythm. The result is a continuous rebalancing of perception, a choreography of light and tone that gradually approaches the limit of perception — the threshold of nowhere. White Balance questions how the human perceptual apparatus constructs “neutrality” and “truth” in mediated experience. By treating white not as a color but as an epistemological problem, SCHNITT expose the instability of what we consider pure, balanced, or natural. The work also reflects on the materiality of digital images: each pixel of projected white light carries within it a structure of invisible frequencies, a hidden sonic potential that becomes audible only through the conversion process. In this way, White Balance acts as a transducer of media, translating the immaterial into the tangible, the visible into the audible, and the conceptual into the sensory.