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| Bill and Mary Buchen |
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See also: Sound Playground
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Sound Carnival
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Completion Date:
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1996
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Medium:
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Steel
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Dimensions:
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Palm Trees: 11' x 4' x 4'
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Location:
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P.S. 244
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Address:
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5400 Tilden Avenue, Brooklyn
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Architect:
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Montoya-Rodriguez, P.C.
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Sponsor Agency:
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Board of Education
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Design Agency:
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School Construction Authority
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Sound Carnival
is a pair of playgrounds designed to help students explore music and the physics of acoustic phenomena. In the early childhood play area, which is located in an interior courtyard away from the street, children communicate through color-coded, steel "telephone tubes" which are inter-connected underground. In the play area for older children, groupings of bronze drums serve a dual purpose of engaging children in communal music making and acting as seats and tables. In one group, or Drum Circle, five Bata drums of Haitian origin and a set of parabolic dishes connect to a large underground chamber. Children hear their voices and drum playing reverberating through grates in the concrete benches and the center of the dishes. In another Drum Circle, conga shaped "talking drums" of Afro-Cuban origin are also connected underground. They are flanked by large parabolic dishes which focus sounds to a central point where children discover their greatly amplified voices. Also located in the playground for older children are a pair of stainless steel "Palm Trees" which are played by slapping the ends of the tuned pipes which form the leaves of the tree. The artists collaborated with the architect on the design of the fence and asphalt of the play area by including stainless steel cut-outs of students' and teachers' hands which are embedded into the asphalt and suspended in the finials of the fence.
About the Artist...
Since 1972, Bill Buchen and Mary Buchen have collaborated in
the creation of works dealing with the synergy of the sonic and visual arts.
Their pursuit has led them to travel throughout the world researching sonic
phenomena and making field recordings. In 1992 they completed Sound
Playground
, a permanent public art work for P.S. 23 in the Bronx. In addition to numerous shows and exhibitions across the country, their work can be seen at Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens.
