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IT’S NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE
to take a walk in New Orleans and not
pass at least one house vibrating with the sound of a musician
practicing or performing. But soon, at 1027 Piety St. in the Bywater
district, it won’t be a tuba or sax making the music—it’ll be the
house itself. Internationally knownBrooklyn street artist Swoon,
working with local arts organization New Orleans Airlift, has
designed an interactive sound sculpture called
Dithyrambalina
in the form of a circular three-story house here.
Until construction begins later this year, the site is serving as a
staging ground for artists developing technologies for the project.
A ramshackle collection of bizarre contraptions, some housed in
sheds built from the remains of the original 1790s Creole co age
(which collapsed last year), fills the property. A keyboard plays
through a tub of water. A spiral staircase emits different tones
depending on what step is pressed. A robotic gamelan—like a
player piano but with xylophones and tiny cymbals—performs
varying arrangements at the touch of a bu on. One installation
amplifies the user’s heartbeat and projects it through spinning
loudspeakers (the artist behind this creation hopes it’ll go in the
fantastical house’s bell tower). Rube Goldberg, meet John Cage.
For Swoon, who presented New Orleans Airlift director
DelaneyMartinwith amodel of what the house should look like,
the ambitious project is “about loving this neighborhood, loving
this block, loving themusical history ofNewOrleans andwanting
to create something that could interact with that,” she says. For
her part, Martin, in addition to curating the project, has come up
with an installation that interacts with the city as well as any
other. “It’s just a subwoofer on the back of a tin shack,” she shouts
over its distorted rumble. “A subwoofer ra ling license plates and
your windows as it drives by is a
very
New Orleans sound.”
Playing House
Architecture that sounds as remarkable as it looks
BY SAM POLCER
NEW ORLEANS
HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
•
JANUARY 2012
ILLUSTRATIONS BY PETER OUMANSKI
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