clipped from: www.davidbyrne.com   
Playing the Building: An Installation by David Byrne

Battery Maritime Building: Front

10 South Street, New York, NY (Map)

31 May – 10 August 2008

Playing the building is a sound installation in which the infrastructure, the physical plant of the building, is converted into a giant musical instrument. Devices are attached to the building structure — to the metal beams and pillars, the heating pipes, the water pipes — and are used to make these things produce sound. The activations are of three types: wind, vibration, striking. The devices do not produce sound themselves, but they cause the building elements to vibrate, resonate and oscillate so that the building itself becomes a very large musical instrument.


Battery Maritime Building: PTB Mockup 2008




RECORDINGS:
Stockholm, 2005:
Watch a phonecam video recording of the installation at the opening
Listen to an audio recording of visitors playing the building
Listen to an audio recording of Andrew Drown playing the building
Listen to an audio recording of Ewa Berglund playing the building