Forty Part Motet
"40 Part Motet" · by striatic
When the new Contemporary Art Museum opened in Cincinnati, I visited it literally the last day I lived there. The building is awesome, but the most exhilarating piece of art was an installation by Janet Cardiff called Forty Part Motet. This installation consisted on 40 speakers which had recorded a choral group signing Thomas Tallis' Spem in alium. You can listen to an excpert of the performance, but it pales in comparison to the installation because at the installation, you can pick out individual voices and walk around during the performace - altering the performance. But such is installation art. Each speaker recorded one voice with the speakers set at mouth height and in the round. What was so special about the installation was that as you ascended an escalator, you were slowly enveloped into the work while an army of mannequins (a la prada) marched in front of the work. Forty Part Motet is one of the most impressive pieces of installation art I have witnessed. If you can find it, check it out.
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This is the permanent home of Forty Part Motet. I wrote this post at 16:35 on January 21, 2005. This post is part of grubbykid.com, a weblog. If you liked this entry, why don't you read some other posts such as Back to SpongeBob Squarepants or Google Image Search? Or you could go to the site archives or return home. All are good choices.
