Music for Hanging Guitars and Audience
Interactive mixed media installation. 2018, 2019 ,2020.
Variable dimensions. Between 4 -6 modified electric guitars, an equal number of amps, e-bows, and quarter inch jacks.
Photo credit needed
A number of electric guitars hang from the ceiling. They drone, producing a loud, electric chord. The audience is invited to tune the guitars, but there is a caveat: an overly loose string ceases to resonante whereas an overly taut string breaks. Between these two silences lies a literal infinity of musical possibilties—worlds of meditative harmony, and rib-shaking dissonance.
Music for Hanging Guitars and Audience is structured as a long musical exquisite corpse. When a gallery visitor tunes a guitar, they are colloborating with past and future visitors. In so far as no single visitor will hear the entire composition, the work invites meditations on the role time plays in collective human action. In this way, Music for Hanging guitars gamifies an important aspect of social life that sometimes hides in plain sight: everything we do effects everyone else, whether we see those effects or not.
Photo credit needed