Bjork

Bjork's new work “Biophilia”

I've been captivated by Bjook's new work "Biophilia". This combination of science themed music, videos and iPad apps is a most interesting work of Art. Here is a NYT article on it:

The Science of Song, the Song of Science – NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/02/arts/music/bjorks-biophilia-at-the-manchester-international-festival.html?ref=technology

“In one song that Bjork performed here on Thursday night, the bass lines were zaps of artificial lightning from a Tesla coil in a cage. In another, a sizable Victorian-looking contraption of stainless steel, the Sharpsichord — part giant music box, part harp, part gramophone — used a rotating barrel to play deep, bonging counterpoint.

For another song, four 10-foot pendulums swung in a computer-maneuvered sequence to pluck delicate, harplike figures. A gameleste — a celeste with gamelanlike bronze bars replacing the usual sugarplum-fairy notes — and a portable pipe organ, both remotely controlled, pinged and tootled through the set.”

Pieces available online:

Crystalline

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvaEmPQnbWk

Solar System

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzGehxUJfsk

Last year I saw the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra perform Holst's 'The Planets” in Severance Hall with NASA high definition astronomical images in the background. This piece has the same flavor.

Thunderbolt with Tesla Coil

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8yJq4wgOmE&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AD6-NepHBI

Shorter but with better sound:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM_9l5kQ66M&feature=related

Solstice with gravity pendulum harp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL7TP2J5_Ow

Instruments:

Tesla Coil Synth Demo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlQp7wXxrgE&NR=1

Pendulum Harp Demo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVe-qjhnPUo