Playing The Building

Anable Basin Tree Splat Project

Playing The Building David Byrne's 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 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. Playing The Building was exhibited at Fargfabriken, Stockholm, Sweden, 2005, in the Battery Maritime Building, in New York in 2008 and in the Roundhouse in London, England in 2009 and Justin Downs was Systems Engineer and Head of Fabrication for the project. For more info on Playing The Building click here.

Materials: Weaver organ, motors, pneumatics, solenoids, pneumatic tube, various analog electronics.

Client: David Byrne