[Image: E13 000625 by Alberto Tadiello; photo by Martino Margheri, courtesy of T293, Napoli].
Inspired by experimental Japanese sound weapons prototyped during World War II, Alberto Tadiello’s E13 000625 (2010) mounts a bass cannon onto the wall of an art gallery, where it greets visitors with an alarming, vibratory blurt.
Régine Debatty calls it “the sound that hits you in the stomach.”
[Image: E13 000625 by Alberto Tadiello; photo by Martino Margheri, courtesy of T293, Napoli].
The resulting object is quite stunning, both insect-like and strangely neurological—the black ganglia of a previously unknown acoustic lifeform—as if an organ had been separated from its body and pinned to the wall for scientific review.
Aside from this straight-forward interest in the piece, however, perhaps there are design suggestions here for a possible future of acoustic ornament: sonically active devices for nontraditional architectural space.
(Via Everyday Listening and we make money not art).
I wonder if the images Tadiello was inspired by might actually have been of Japanese acoustic locators, rather than weapons? Interesting, though, and the point about the "possible future of acoustic ornament" still stands.