A young tyke gets jiggy on Byrne’s musical architecture. (Photos by C-M.)
So David Byrne’s installation for Creative Time in NYC—a building converted into an organ—isn’t the best instrument on which to attempt to play Chopsticks. All I got was some pipe clanging and a few breathy booms, which brought back all sorts of memories of the prehistoric radiator system in a crappy Brooklyn apartment I once lived in. Even so, the installation, called Playing the Building, is damn cool. The space is gorgeous in a decayed Victorian society kinda way and the notion that you can get pipes to bang on command is, well, pretty awesome—if not terribly tuneful. The sounds have a Koyaanisqatsi feel about them, which, while interesting, don’t exactly make for easy listening. The best part of the show? I now get to tell everybody I played with David Byrne’s organ.
See a video here. The installation is up through Aug. 10.
Click on images to supersize. More after the jump.
It was a veritable media frenzy.
Love it when people are encouraged to manhandle the art.
The wires extended out of the back of the organ and into the building.
Posted by C-Monster.
david byrne is a dead man.