Description
/
Location
/
Philosophy
/
Footnotes /
Previous Projects
(Click
here to view video animation)
Public Art Installation Design Proposal
For
P.L.A.C.E. Temporary Public Art Project, Ventura, California
Description
Five
sombre black pillars arranged in a circle is reminiscent of the columns of an
ancient Greek temple or Stonehenge. As you enter the circle of pillars you
notice that each one has an opening in its side large enough to insert a hand.
Look inside and there is nothing to see but an empty black hole. Dare you insert
your hand?
Placing your hand into the hole 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.
Cracks of light, like lightening, symbolizing the life force Chi, appear on the column running along
its length in erratic patterns.
Then
you will feel, placing your other hand against the surface of the column, that
the column is vibrating, as though hit by a sudden earthquake.
Remove your hand from the hole and the pillar returns to its former repose.
By
walking around the circle of pillars and inserting your hand into the openings
you will discover that each pillar has a different sound, color, and vibration
representing diversity.
But
one person alone cannot unlock the final secret.
Only
by cooperating and working together can five people, each inserting their hands
into the five pillars, trigger the final effect.
First, all five columns will play their respective notes and flash their colors
creating an A Major cord in both sound and light. Spotlights of white light
shoot into the sky from the tops of each pillar
and flash
around in a circle chase. Then another sound is heard
from each of the pillars in a low rumbling bass tone that vibrates the entire
structure. That tone is “Om”. Thus diversity, through harmony and cooperation,
is unified and becomes one.
What
have you experienced?
Location
California Plaza,
upper tier between Aloha Steak House and The Crowne Plaza Hotel.
This location is
ideally suited for Tubular Zen for several reasons.
Aesthetically,
the plaza is bordered by eight Palm Trees and eight Street Lamps. These upright
tubular structure offers a perfect blend for the up-right tubular sculpture.
This location would
also provide the greatest visibility from the Boardwalk, Main Street, and even
City Hall.
Pedestrian traffic is
greater during the early evening with people visiting the art gallery, walking
along the boardwalk or going to eat at the several restaurants nearby. Since the
effects of Tubular Zen are even more interesting at night, this location would
allow more people to experience the artwork under ideal conditions.
This location also
has several sources for the AC power required by the installation.
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, both individually, and as a group, to trigger the
effects. 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.
Tubular Zen’s final effect requires people to figuratively and literally join
hands with the sculpture. While each person can individually sound their own
note and sound in life, it is by working together in harmony that all notes are
combined into the grand chord.
More
about the Pentatonic scale
here
More
about the Shakuhachi flute
here
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.
More
about Synesthesia
here.
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.
Footnotes
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.
Shakuhachi
The
shakuhachi is a Japanese end-blown flute which is held vertically like a
recorder, instead of transversely like the Western transverse flute. It is
traditionally made of bamboo, but versions now exist in wood and plastic. Its
soulful sound made it popular in Western 1980s pop music.
During the medieval period, shakuhachi
were most notable for their role in the Fuke sect of Zen Buddhist monks, known
as komusō ("priests of nothingness"), who used the shakuhachi as a
spiritual tool in the practice of suizen (blowing meditation)
It is
said that in the medieval era there was also a martial art based around using a
shakuhachi to defeat a swordsman. This is not entirely implausible, as the root
end of a piece of bamboo (especially one with some root remnants intact) is
extremely tough and heavy, making it effective as a blunt weapon. Further, many
komusō were actually ronin, who would have been willing and able
to learn a new martial art for protection if nothing else.
Synesthesia
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.
