MASS MoCa harmonic bridge plays traffic in the key of C
Joshua Foer is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Joshua is a freelance science journalist and the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica, with Dylan Thuras.
I was at MASS MoCa not long ago, but somehow managed to miss "Harmonic Bridge," an intriguing sound sculpture by the artists Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger. Atlas Obscura user CharlieCoats writes:
Artists Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger affixed two 16-foot-long resonating tubes to the bottom of a highway overpass, and placed microphones at specific intervals to pick up both the sound of traffic and passing pedestrians. The sounds travel down to speakers encased in concrete cubes on either side of the road below the bridge. The hum generated by the device is a droning C, one so low its sound wave is 16 feet long (the reason for such long tubes).
The droning is a subtle presence that blends with the sounds of passing cars, creating a unique sonic experience in a seemingly unimportant location. An instrument literally played by the city, one whose melodies are harmonious with the overall landscape of sound in the urban world.
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My S.O is currently writing a book about Mass-MoCA, its impact on the community and the history behind the largest Mill complex in North America being turned into an Art Museum. North Adams Mass. has some unusual statistics in terms of poverty, illiteracy and even incest. The Museum is honestly an enigma. I have not had a chance to see this piece, however what I love most about this institution is that it allows for some very large and complex installations, such as the piece mentioned above. I would recommend anyone to stop by and visit if you are nearby, it is well worth the trip.
Very interesting and clever work, I really like it. I wish I could exhibit work like this at my Gallery.
Nice! But I'd love it even more if it were an entirely acoustic instrument.
Some Arkansas/Tennessee hipsters did something very similar with a bridge across the Mississippi at Memphis back in the '70s:
It Came From Memphis
I have been to many museums in my time, but MassMOCA takes the cake. It is a spectacularly beautiful building in a strange post-industrial, quasi-rural area.
And the programming (despite some well-publicized recent screw ups) is spectacular.
I remember walking under this overpass after having my mind explooey-ed in an installation there and feeling the sensation of being stalked by sublimity.
Thanks for covering this!
John Fahey.
How can you do this in MA, where they
freak out about LEDs and breadboards on hoodies?
Put a box under a freeway?
interesting project. Wonder if anyone has considered taking it a step further and making some sort of massive noise canceling system for loud highways....
as in anti-noise? How would you flip the waveform?
I'll be there tomorrow. Thanks for the tip.
Anon#6, this is in North Adams, about as far (in all senses) from Boston as you can get and still be in Massachusetts.
mp3 or streamed audio would be nice!
hey i wrote that!
I can't speak for the acoustical properties, but I have a favorite overpass over a canal where I find the traffic makes a satisfying drone. I enjoy it most bicycling along a path by the canal late at night; I'll stop for a few minutes to enjoy the sound. The lights of cars passing overhead, the canal's navigation lights, and light from nearby radio towers add to the experience; the overpass itself from underneath reminds me of of a Japanese shinto arch.
I was going to ask how I can live in MA, and only seem to find out about this stuff from a site not based in Ma, but I think Roast Beef answered that question.
I remember finidng it in North Adams, although it was more of a B# to my ear.
Takuan, just hook the positive to the negative and the negative to the positive. Phase change! AHH!
You can hear what the Harmonic Bridge sounds like at this Odland+Auinger website:
http://www.o-a.info/mmca/index.html