Abstract expressionist art

Tag : electronic organ music

What once served as a soaring waiting room for passengers to boardferries bound for South Brooklyn until 1938, the Battery MaritimeBuilding in lower Manhattan was transformed into a massive soundsculpture for which all visitors are invited to sit and "play." Theproject consists of a retro-fitted antique organ in which theinnards are replaced with relays, wires, and light-blue air hoses,and placed in the center of the building's cavernous second-floorgallery. The organ is fitted with several motors, which produce thebass sounds by vibrating a set of girders that once supported astained-glass skylight in the 40-foot-high ceiling. The organ isattached to a pump that blows air through a tangle of hoses. Thesehoses snake into the huge room's old water and heating pipes andconduits, making primitive flute sounds. And then there are morethan a dozen spring-loaded solenoids, attached to the columns andeven to a huge radiator that emits a surprisingly sonorous tonewhen struck in just the right place with a metal rod. Theactivations are of three types: wind, vibration, and striking. Thedevices do not produce sound themselves, but they cause thebuilding elements to vibrate, resonate, and oscillate so that thebuilding itself becomes a very large musical instrument.