Propagation (Opus 3), 2015
Wood, speakers, amplifiers, mixers, wires, cables, piano strings, bone, cable holders, contact microphones, brass, sheet rock. 6.5 meters high x 6.8 meters wide.
MARTE- Contemporary, El Salvador, Curated by Claire Breukel
Tsabar’s site responsive installation “Propagation (Opus 3)” assumes and consumes the museum structure by transforming its architecture into the basis of a enormous musical instrument that resonates both inside, within, and outside of the museum. Visitors can pluck the strings that play the museum innards. What results is a penetrative sound that invades the building’s architecture. Tsabar uses this architectural context, specifically the institutional context, to bring incongruous characteristics of sculpture, music and performance together. However, it is the visual characteristics of each of these creative forms that determine the technical and sound component of the work so that strings, speakers and the instrument’s face become a visual sketch on the museum wall experienced only from a distance, and that when stepping closer, aesthetics merge and the body is encouraged to engage and perform. As such, the installation is in continual flow between the aesthetic and the functional. (Text from “The Museum, The Instrument” by Claire Breukel, MARTE-C, El Salvador).
While on display the work could be activated by museum goers as well as professional musicians. The opening night included a performance by David Guardado, Naama Tsabar, Sara Moreno, Rocio Benavides and Jose Antonio Gonzales.
Photos by Rodrigo Dada
The lower part of the wall is made out of wood and holds sixty piano strings on it. The space between this new wall and the former wall acts as a sound box, the vibration of the strings are picked up by contact microphones placed in the sound box.
The wires serve as lines in the visual composition, as well as functional elements – connecting between the instruments, mixers, amplifiers and speakers they create a close circuit that amplifies the playing of the strings.
The speakers have been mounted backward into the museum wall, penetrating its facade. Amplifying the different strings, propagating sound through the architecture of the museum.
Excerpt from performance of the opening night.