Stefan H. Verstappen
Art & Design

 

 

 

Tubular Zen
 Light,  Sound,  and  Spirit.
 
 
P.L.A.C.E. Temporary Public Art Project,
California Plaza, Ventura, California
Sept. 26 to Nov. 19 '08
 
 
A single black pillar stands in the center of two rows of tall palm trees in the mist
 

Description / Location / Philosophy / Acknowledgments / News & Media

Click here to see and hear video of Tubular Zen on Youtube


Description

Five black pillars in a circle in a public square

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 a lighted button on its side.

Single black pillar lit with cracks of red lightTouching 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.

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.

A few seconds later and the pillar returns to its former repose.

By walking around the circle of pillars and pressing the buttons you will discover that each pillar has a different sound, color, and vibration representing diversity.

When all pillars are activated you will hear the eerie but soothing 'C' diminished 7th cord.

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.

Five black pillars in a circle in pubnlic square

Long view of Tubular Zen looks similar to Stonehenge


Close up of single piillarPhilosophy

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.

 


Two samples of bamboo flutes 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.

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All artwork and images by S.H.Verstappen, All Rights reserved 2003.