Did you hear something? I recently attended the opening of Harry Bertoia: Sculpting Mid-Century Modern Life at the Nasher Sculpture Center. You must SEE this exhibition before it closes on April 24 but you should also take time to HEAR some of the sounding (sonambient) sculptures created by Bertoia.
© Estate of Harry Bertoia / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: courtesy Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
I was excited to see and hear the work of Olivia Block who recorded Bertoia's sculpture and created an interactive work The Speed of Sound in Infinite Copper. As you will see from the image below, this work includes a beam of light at one end of the gallery that has the appearance of a string instrument with lines of light projected across the floor. According to the artist, the visual aspect is actually the shadow and reflection of the sounding sculpture itself. As you walk across the beams of light, sensors above will trigger the artist's recordings of the Bertoia sonambient sculptures.
Photo: courtesy of Olivia Block
I have included a link to various panel discussions on the Harry Bertoia: Sculpting Mid-Century Modern Life at the Nasher Sculpture Center, but also wanted to include Olivia Block's discussion on her work The Speed of Sound in Infinite Copper. I cannot wait for you to see and hear this exhibition. It is amazing...even without the sonic boom.
Updated May 2022: I recently had a chance to ask Olivia a few questions.
Beckett: What materials did Bertoia use to make the sonambient sculptures and how does the material, size and height affect the sounds?
Olivia: Bertoia used very specific metal alloys, particularly beryllium copper, to achieve the sound of the Sonambients. The metals that he chose have very resonant, long sound decay times, so each tone lasts a really long time, fading away very slowly. The size and height of each rod of metal affects the sound in terms of timbre and especially pitch. If you think of a pipe organ, for instance, the longest pipes have the lowest pitch, sending out the largest sound waves. The same is true for the rods of metal Bertoia used in his Sonambients. The medium-large sculptures have the fullest and most tonal sound qualities, while the smaller ones have a high almost white noise quality, because the sound waves are smaller. On each Sonambient, Bertoia cut each rod to be a slightly different height, resulting in rods with slightly different pitches (maybe like being flat or sharp off of a root note). That technique makes each Sonambient sonically complex, with many sets of overtones and rich bell-like sounds.
Beckett: How long were you working on The Speed of Sound in Infinite Copper before it was installed at the Nasher?
Olivia: I worked on the installation for around two years before it was installed. My piece was created in several stages. First, I spent many months in the planning stage, corresponding with the museum and making sketches. One year before the opening I traveled to the Nasher to record the Sonambient sculptures. I then worked in my studio on the sounds, created the sensor bars, and finally worked on the sensor design with Stephan Moore. The very last stage of any installation is actually putting the piece into the museum or gallery. Most of the work goes in way before that time.
Beckett: Did Bertoia create many different types of sonambient sculptures and which one/type was your favorite to perform?
Olivia: Yes, there is such a huge variation in sizes and types of Sonambient sculptures. I think he created the entire group to function like an orchestra. If you think of an orchestra, the piccolo is at the highest end, playing certain types of passages, and the low drums and contrabass are at the lower end of the frequency spectrum, playing different types of musical passages. Similarly, I think each Sonambient has a particular function in the larger group. There are huge gongs which make dramatic thunderous sounds, and high chime-like sounds from some of the smaller sculptures. I loved playing the larger pieces because each one had a particular tone which seemed to be singing above all of the others.
Beckett: What musical influences do you have or what is currently on your playlist?
Olivia: I have so many musical influences it’s almost difficult to list any at all. I love music that doesn’t sound like mine at all, like Fela Kuti and anything on the Ethiopiques music series. I love Gaigaku music from Japan. Then I also love music on the Room40 label (the one that released my recent album). On my playlist currently is a band called Es from the UK, an older album by Kim Jung Mi called Now, and electroacoustic music from Beatriz Ferreyra.
Beckett: When did first realize that you wanted to be a sounding artist and which subjects in school helped you the most?
Olivia: When I was young, I understood sound and music better than anything else. When I was a young adult I realized that I should pursue sound and music as a career, even though I wasn’t sure what that would look like. I loved music and chorus ensembles in school. I think being surrounded by sound from all directions in a group informed my ideas later about creating lots of speakers making sounds in a space.
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