When a shell separates the penny, why won't a grain object around sound?

PERFORMANCES – INTERVENTIONS – SOUND

The line, they said, appears to be metaphorical or abstract. The meaning might not be immediately obvious without context. A literal interpretation could be, they suggested, that a shell divides or splits a penny (a coin that might have sunken to the bottom of the sea and happened to land on a very sharp seashell). Or the line could express a concept of separation or division, perhaps symbolized by the shell and the penny, and questioning why there isn’t a corresponding reaction or noise from something else, symbolized by the grain object. But they doubted that this was the meaning intended. In their opinion it seemed to be more likely that this was a metaphor, an analogy, or an allegory perhaps? They had a really hard time with the second part on the grain object which they considered to be even more ambiguous. And what exactly is a grain object? Without more context, they said, it is challenging to provide a definitive interpretation. They asked us to provide more context. So we decided to do so.

Contextgivers are:
Liudmila Anoshenkova
Emma Bayer
Kristina Cyan
Vincent Entekhabi
Hicran Ergen
Djoana Gueorguieva
Selin Karaman
Artem Konevskikh
Vivian König
Lila-Zoe Krauss
Kseniia Nechay
Buket Özalevli
Friederike Steinert
Luisali Theisen

Supervised von Constanze Ruhm, Marlies Pöschl und Axel Stockburger.