Description
Four sombre
black tubes arranged in a triangle hang from a trapezoid overhead resembling a
giant wind chime.
Its purpose is
a mystery until you come closer and walk inside the triangle. As you walk under
the sculpture your presence will activate the different tubes. Each will ring a
low soothing tone and simultaneously bath you in a vibrating light. In addition,
the black tube will light up in a hundred points of flickering light.
As more people
enter the triangle they in turn will trigger each tube creating random musical
cords and notes, always different, yet always in harmony since the tubes are
tuned in a pentatonic musical scale.
Tubular
Chimes
is designed to interact with pedestrian traffic below to create random musical
and light patterns that constantly change according to traffic flow.
Location
Tubular
Chimes is ideal for
atriums, towers, and hallways and
is completely safe for public
interaction. The installation weights less than 150lbs and is hung by high
tension steel cables eight feet above the ground so that it does not interfere
with traffic flow and is out of reach of vandals.
Philosophy
Tubular
Chimes combines art
with technology to create an interactive public art installation. Based on the
existentialist concept that there is no art without the observer, Tubular Chimes
requires the participation of the observer to work.
Hanging
overhead allows free pedestrian traffic flow beneath. This traffic flow will
create a random ‘Music of Movement’. People walking beneath act like the holes
in an old player piano scroll playing the sculpture.
Inside each
tube is a large tubular chime that is tuned to one note of a soothing D major
cord. The tube within a tube design forces the sound downwards and out through
the bottom opening. This means that while the Chimes will be slightly audible
from outside the triangle. Only by standing underneath the sculpture will you be
able to fully appreciate the sounds.
Within each
tube is a miniature motion detector that is activated whenever someone walks
beneath the tube. The motion sensor turns on two circuits. On activates a bell
striker that strikes the chime. The second circuit turns on the lights which are
modulated by a light organ. A microphone picks up the sound of the chime and
modulates the light’s frequency and intensity in harmony with the sounds
generated by the chimes.
