Click
here to download the MP3 file
of the sounds played by the installation.
Location
California
Plaza, upper tier between Aloha Steak House and The Crowne Plaza Hotel.
Philosophy
Tubular Zen is a multi-media, multi-sensory interactive installation
artwork that combines the concepts of Zen, Synesthesia, and Music
Education. The secret of all art is that of the onion -.it is comprised
of layer upon layer, upon layer…
Zen
The
five pillars represent, and play, the five notes of the
Pentatonic scale. A pentatonic scale is an ancient musical
structure found all over the world that consists of five tones or
notes. It is also the scale employed by the Japanese
Shakuhachi flute. This ancient flute was at one time
the sole preserve of Zen monks who played the flute as a form of
meditation.
Tubular Zen is also an interactive installation requiring the viewer to
become a part of the sculpture. Likewise Zen requires you to understand
the connection between oneself and one’s environment. The sculpture
really only exists when the viewer becomes a part of it. Just as life
only exists by interacting with it.
About
the Pentatonic scale
here
About
the Shakuhachi flute
here
Acknowledgments
Music
provided by Ross Stein of
Camino Real Productions
- Artist's Reception
Dance performance by Pamela
Pilkenton from the Ventura Pilates Studio
-
- Installation assistance by the team at Art
City
Synesthesia
Can
a blind man hear a color? Can a deaf man feel a tone?
Inspired by working with the blind, artist Stefan Verstappen thought of
a way of creating artworks that the blind could experience. His
research led him to the phenomenon of synesthesia.
By
incorporating different sensory stimulators into the artwork,
Verstappen makes them accessible to a greater number of people. From
the handicapped to the autistic, each can experience the artwork in
their own unique way.
The word synesthesia means "joined sensation" and shares
a root with anesthesia, meaning "no sensation." It occurs in 1 out of
25,000 individuals and is a condition in which the different senses
somehow become jumbled together and trade characteristics. It is
described as “…the involuntary physical experience of a cross-modal
association. That is, the stimulation of one sensory modality reliably
causes a perception in one or more different senses.”
For
example, persons with this rare capacity seem to hear colors, taste
shapes, or experience other equally bizarre sensory perceptions. A
synesthet might describe the color, shape, and flavor of a piece of
music, or recognize a smell by its shape. Or, feeling the texture of a
fabric a synesthet might detect the "sound" of the fabric as well.
These sensations are usually experienced as being projected outside the
individual. In other words the sensory experiences are felt as being as
real as any other sensory experience and not as some hallucination or
image inside the mind. When a synesthet says he can hear the sound of
the color red, for him, it is as real as actually seeing the color red.
Medicine has known about synesthesia for three centuries, yet few
of us have ever heard of this sense even though it may hold the key to
consciousness, the nature of reality, and the relationship between
reason and emotion. Scientists believe that it is not just that
certain people have this sense, but only that certain people have a
malfunction in their filtering process that allows sense impression
generated by synesthesia to become a part of conscious awareness. What
they believe is that everyone has this sense but most of us are just
totally unaware of it.
Music Education
A
group of children can interact with the sculpture and create
spontaneous music of two three, four and five note cords by working
together and triggering each pillar in random order.
The
pentatonic scale plays a significant role in music education,
particularly in Orff-based methodologies at the primary/elementary
level. The Orff system places a heavy emphasis on developing creativity
through improvisation in children, largely through use of the
pentatonic scale which Orff himself believed to be children's native
tonality. Orff believed that the use of the pentatonic scale at such a
young age was appropriate to the development of each child, since the
nature of the scale meant that it was impossible for the child to make
any real harmonic mistakes.
Tubular Zen thus can inspired young children towards an interest
in music.
Pentatonic Scale
A
pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five pitches per octave as
compared to the major scale which is made up of seven distinct notes.
Pentatonic scales are very common and are found all over the world,
including but not limited to Celtic folk music, African-American
spirituals, American Blues Music and Rock Music, children's songs, the
clarinet Music of Epirus in northwest Greece and Southern Albania
The
major pentatonic scale is the basic scale of the music of China and the
Music of Mongolia. The fundamental tones of the Japanese shakuhachi
flute play a minor pentatonic scale.
Touching the button
will cause the pillar to come to life. First you will hear a single
lonely musical note from a Shakuhatchi flute playing one of the
five notes of the pentatonic scale. 