Source: CCTV.com

06-06-2008 08:46

The Battery Maritime Building in lower Manhattan has opened to the public for the first time in decades. It's served as the ultimate creative fantasy for music lovers. For everyone else it's a strangely offbeat experience. Thanks to artist David Byrne's new installation, visitors can use a retrofitted antique organ to "play" the entire building.

Be patient! It's not an ordinary organ. By pressing the keyboard, you are playing the whole building. Through a series of devices, the retrofitted antique organ is attached to the building's structural elements such as metal beams, electrical conduits and plumbing to produce a broad range of tuned sounds.

Tamara Ochoa, Visitor, said, "I think it's great because he's using such an old instrument, hundreds of years old and combining it with modern technology and I've never seen anything like it. I think its pretty innovative and the use of this space is great as well."

The installation was originally commissioned by Fargfabriken, Stockholm in 2005. Then Byrne also decided to bring the idea to New York. It took about two years to find the right venue in Manhattan.

David Byrne said, "In a big old industrial space like this as they are all over Europe, all over a good part of the world, that all these parts all make sounds if you knock on them with your hand or whatever, they are sound producing things. So, it just seemed obvious to me that you could organize that a little bit."

Byrne said he could see the surprise in "people's faces." That made for a special moment. And it wasn't just those who tried the organ who seemed enthralled, so were some visitors who came to just sit in the cavernous installation and listen to the strange, whistling sounds.

"Playing the Building" will be open to visitors on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through the summer.

 

Editor:Yang Jie