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David Byrne Wants You to "Play the Building"

Posted at 5:06 PM on May 13, 2008 by Steve Seel

This seems like a natural extension of what Dave's pal Brian Eno was doing several years ago, when Eno turned empty buildings into works of slowly mutating visual art. Starting May 31, Byrne is taking over New York's Battery Maritime Building and turning the whole structure into a giant musical instrument.

Why is this kind of thing so cool? I think it has to do with something Eno himself suggested years ago, as part of the motivation behind his Ambient Music recordings. Essentially, he said that most of his art was about "making special places," arising from the same subconcious place that inspires a child to build a fort out of a blanket draped over the dinner table. I see his act of co-opting of the structures that were designed for other purposes and turning them into "art" (i.e. "play") as the same thing; Byrne's musical building merely takes this to its logical extreme, and lets you bang on the hood of Dad's Ford LTD with Mom's cooking spatulas.

Still, as for "turning your location into music," this classic piece by New York percussionist David van Tieghem is pretty hard to beat (the sloppy video editing hasn't aged well, but it's still fun).

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