A collaboration with sound artist Shawn Decker
TAJU 2005, environmental exhibition in Hyvinkää, 10.6.-4.9.2005
This installation was in the center of a small town,Hyvinkää, outside of Helsinki, as a part of the TAJU05 environmental art exhibition. It was installed for an entire summer as part of a café in the City Center. Decker could not be present for the installation. Therefore the sound element involved speakers playing a recording created by Decker. First, a recording of the soundscape of the location was made, then processed by the artist back in Decker’s studio in Evanston, Illinois. Decker’s composition was thus a response made in reaction to the sounds found at the site: suburban buses, automobiles, and bicycles passing by, the sounds of shoppers, etc
The Bird’s Nest Hyvinkää explores new ways of developing architecture based on forms found in nature. These forms are combined with kinetic sound works that are likewise derived directly from natural processes. The artists see these acoustic and kinetic elements functioning as architectural ornamentation, broadening of the concept of the “ornament” to include sound and rhythm.
Although the Bird’s Nest looks chaotic, it is made of a single, geometric, triangular shaped wooden ”module”. The concept of the module has been widely used in modernist architecture, resulting in monotonous buildings with repeated patterns. In the Bird’s Nest structure, however, the arrangement of the triangular “modules” in a semi-chaotic manner creates a space which is more organic and rooted in structures found within natural systems.
Visitors are invited to sit down inside the Nest, with a cup of coffee, and experience the sound and the transparency of the structure and how it allows the surrounding to be a part of the experience.
