David Byrne

DAVID BYRNE TRANSFORMS THE INTERIOR OF THE LANDMARK BATTERY MARITIME BUILDING INTO AN INTERACTIVE SOUND INSTALLATION FOR ALL VISITORS TO PLAY.
Creative Time presents Playing the Building, a 9,000-square-foot, interactive, site-specific installation by renowned artist David Byrne. The artist will transform the interior of the landmark Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan into a massive sound sculpture that all visitors are invited to sit and “play.” The project will consist of a retrofitted antique organ, placed in the center of the building’s cavernous second-floor gallery, that will control a series of devices attached to its structural features—metal beams, plumbing, electrical conduits, and heating and water pipes. These machines will vibrate, strike, and blow across the building’s elements, triggering unique harmonics and producing finelytuned sounds.As Byrne explains: “Typical parts of buildings can be used to produce interesting sounds. Everyone is familiar with the fact that if you rap on a metal column, for example, you will hear a ping or a clang, but I wondered if the pipes could be turned into giant flutes, and if a machine could make girders vibrate and produce tones.”
http://www.creativetime.org/programs/archive/2008/byrne/index.html