I was lucky enough to visit artist Craig Colorusso’s installation piece Sun Boxes today. I’ve blogged it before, with the video of a windy test run that was making the rounds, but with slightly better conditions (and my new iPhone) I put together a minute of new video. Nothing can really match the spatial feeling of walking through the speakers, trying to identify and follow the notes, but for those of us who sat in front of the field, trying to not get baked by the sun, this is pretty close! Apologies for the trembly camera work—apparently I need to practice that with the new phone.

I got a chance to talk with Craig about the installation. First, some practical details: each box (there are 20, but plans for 100 in the future) plays a single note, stored as a sample on a chip (they’re recordings of him playing guitar, although they sound like they could be synthesized tones), and the sample lengths are varied so that patterns emerge and repeat rarely, Discreet Music-style. Craig made a great point in line with what Eno has said about Discreet Music: faint music makes you listen, and you begin to notice the sounds that are not part of the music. Although not terribly quiet (in a good way—it really created a sense of aural exterior space), I found that Sun Boxes made me notice the other sounds of the outdoors and try to incorporate them into the “music”—birdsong, mowers, golfers (we were next to a golf course). The whole thing is a B flat 6 chord, separated out spatially, and it’s the kind of thing you wish you could hear faintly all the time.

The economy of parts in the installation is very pleasant: each box is self-contained, with a solar panel on top and no way to store power, they just stop when the sun goes away. I will say that I kind of wish the tones were synthesized in each box; they didn’t need to be recordings, and there is something elegant about the idea of solar-powered oscillators producing tones, as if the photons blow through the circuit, stopping only with nightfall or a passing cloud.

[and then, to complete my “boxes of the north shore tour,” we had lunch at the clam box. also recommended.]

Sun Boxes are an environment to enter and exit. It’s comprised of twenty speakers operating independently each powered by solar panels. There is a different guitar sample in each box all playing together making the composition. The guitar samples are all of different lengths so the whole piece keeps evolving. Participants are encouraged to walk amongst the speakers. It sounds different inside of the array. There is a different sense of space inside. Certain speakers will be closer and louder therefore the piece will sound different to different people in different positions throughout the array. Creating a unique experience for everyone. There are no batteries involved. The Sun Boxes are reliant on the sun. When the sun sets the music stops. The piece changes as the length of the day changes. Making the participants aware of the cycle of the day.

(via Super Bon!)