A Gothic church in Austria has a noisy new congregation. Swiss sound artist Zimoun has filled the nave and transepts of the 13th century building with 150 wooden seesaws that tap the floor in a hypnotic rhythm.

Each motor-powered seesaw points in a different direction inside Klangraum Krems church, located in the town of Krems an der Donau. The installation’s catchy title is an inventory of its parts: 150 prepared dc-motors, 270kg wood, 210m string wire.

‘The sum of all those individual systems is generating rich textures in sound and motion, while the architecture of the church is reflecting and amplifying all the tiny sounds all over the space,’ Zimoun told Dezeen.

Klangraum Krems – or the Stein Minorite church, as it was known – ceased being a place of worship in the late 18th century. Since then, it has had many lives, from a tobacco deposit to a fire station, before becoming an exhibition space in the 1950s.

Zimoun’s seesaw orchestra will be playing until 26 July.