"Electromechanical Lithophone" is an interactive installation that explores the re-appropriation of a traditional musical instrument into a unique and subversive spatial paradigm.
The audience is invited to step inside an enclosure of 24 tone bars crafted from North Welsh Green Slate; the bars are arranged in a large circle and mounted on modules that enable autonomous musical performance. Participants can select a piece of pre-programmed music to experience from within the installation and are also encouraged to play the Lithophone in real time using an electronic keyboard.
The installation is designed to envelop the audience in the surrounding slate tones, providing a beautifully disorientating and complex sonic experience. The installation is considered universally site specific, the independent nature of each tone bar module means they can be positioned anywhere in a space. As such the installation is able to adapt to and exploit the unique physical and acoustic characteristics offered by the spaces within which it is exhibited. Consequently this forms an inseparable creative bond between the installation and each unique performance space it inhabits.
© Jay Harrison 2023