OT: Fantasie No. 1 For Mobile Pianos, by Joe Winter, may be the antidote to music installations that take themselves a bit too seriously:
Five modified toy pianos circulate the gallery on five elevated wooden tracks. Each piano is equipped with small speakers to play amplified sounds picked up from conductive tape on the tracks.
Each piano also contains small motors which intermittently spin to strike the toy pianos’ tone bars, adding acoustic elements to the overall soundtrack of the work. The installation also features five video monitors, which display images of five different real landscapes to compliment the abstract landscape of the wooden tracks.
As the pianos begin to move around the gallery, these video landscapes are also populated by a seemingly infinite stream of mobile pianos. The video documentation composites footage of the installation in the gallery with footage shown on the monitors within the installation.
This work was originally exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego.
Anybody that can make an art installation out of dune buggy pianos gets my vote.
Check it out and let me know what you think!
What I think? Its very spacial, no; experimental. Very abstract. (sorry; English isn't my first language and I think this deserves a comment from me writing as I would have said it).
In a way I tend to say "easy, duh" and then I re-read the article again and yes.. "may be the antidote to music installations that take themselves a bit too seriously".
I like this. Even though being pushed forward as some sort of parody this still is a movie which takes care of details. For example; I really dig some of those scenes where you see the piano's moving, an empty blue sky but wait… There's a blue (ok; its not fully blend in or something, not my point here ok?) track which moves yet another piano.
MAN… I have difficulties trying to put my thoughts to word right now whereas I usually easily write up a long story which is generally speaking also understood by most people…
Really; I like this… Abstract yet realistic, silly yet serious, "amateurish" yet very carefully crafted (mind the details folks) (note/disclaimer: ""; meant this a bit sarcastic).
How do you come up with this stuff? (offtopic now:) Seriously; THIS is also the kind of stuff why I keep following Synthtopia. No; not saying this is the most fantastic piece ever; this triggers a "diversity" comment.. One way serious; then surrealistic (THATs what I meant above).
I really enjoyed this. Open up your mind folks; just watch and don't think.
Synthfan – glad you liked this.
I liked it because it made me laugh and it reminded me of the 70's saturday morning kids shows where the characters drove around in dune buggies.
And how often does avant garde music make you laugh?
I like Laurie Anderson for the same reason. She uses humor – and electronics – as tools to get you to think about things.
About where/why I include this sort of thing on the site: beyond the gear and the new sounds, synthesis is really about combining ideas to create something new.
Synthfan – glad you liked this.
I liked it because it made me laugh and it reminded me of the 70's saturday morning kids shows where the characters drove around in dune buggies.
And how often does avant garde music make you laugh?
I like Laurie Anderson for the same reason. She uses humor – and electronics – as tools to get you to think about things.
About where/why I include this sort of thing on the site: beyond the gear and the new sounds, synthesis is really about combining ideas to create something new.
Woss not to like? I also liked his "One Ship encounters a series of notable exceptions" too.
"…it reminded me of the 70's saturday morning kids shows where the characters drove around in dune buggies." Oh yeah. Tra La La, La La La La. Deeeeaaaar Drooper!
Well, I'm going "on the record" for this…
I didn't see the intended humor (but that's due to my inexperience here; I jumped into the "synth world" out of the blue beginning this year) but I did see a movie which I quite much enjoyed by its sheer setup and registration. I can identify myself with "people taking themselves too seriously" yet in other ways than you guys described.
Alas; enjoyable!