NEXTpittsburgh: Market Square has been transformed once again thanks to the Netherlands-based artist, Allard van Hoorn. Armed with a digital voice recorder, the performance, sound and installation artist spent time working with eight local groups in town to create a super-sized interactive record player that takes up the entire inner square of Market Square.
3 comments:
My initial reaction to this installation was that it was a pretty lame display of concentric circles. I still feel like they could have done more with this opportunity, but now that I've read more about the details of it, it seems very cool! I like that it's a very personal project to Pittsburgh. The recordings were done in Market Square of music with tap dancers and it is located in a very central part of Pittsburgh (not geographically, but socially). I personally like to visit Market Square every now and then, so I will hopefully get to experience it myself! I hope that it is not just the center that the music comes from, but that there are speakers throughout the seating areas...I suppose we'll see, but either way, cool idea, cool result.
I love public art installations, as they create a fantastic draw for the cities they're composed in. Most recently, when the massive rubber duck visited Pittsburgh, it brought a significant amount of tourist activity to the downtown areas. Beyond bringing tourists, I think public art is also a fantastic way of getting citizens of a particular location up and out of their homes to visit the areas that they may have lost touch with. I certainly haven't been to market square in quite some time, and I'm considering going for the sake of the art installation and because it would be a good reason to get up and go eat something downtown instead of constantly staying around campus. I've had the pleasure of exploring a ton of the areas of Pittsburgh that exist outside of the CMU bubble, and I really can't recommend to enough people that it's worth doing. There is so much more out in our fantastic city, and more students should have the experience of exploring it while they're still here!
Public art installations are probably some of my favorite types of art. I love what public art stands for-- the fact that regardless of your class, background, career, or age, you are allowed to experience and participate in public art. Too many times in the art world is art separated by the image of it being only for the "rich" and those who "get it." That is such a pretentious and pompous way to share art with the world, so on the flip side I feel like public art does a wonderful job of addressing that image. It bridges "normal people" with the "art world people" and to me, that's something which is very crucial to me. Accessibility. The art world isn't just populated by the avant gardes and the classical renaissance painters. I also haven't spent much time downtown in Pittsburgh due to the workload here at CMU, but when the weather gets nicer and my time opens up some more, I really would love to explore the cultural district and other cool parts of the city. I'm really glad to see that Pittsburgh is incorporating more public installation art into its cityscape because like Brennan said above, it does really generate tourist activity (especially if it's particularly cool). I have been to the Mattress Factory however, and it's such an awesome installation-only museum. I went last semester on a weekend by myself, and I've been itching to go back ever since!
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