Harmonic Conduit for Ruggles Station

Harmonic Conduit for Ruggles Station is a large-scale sound installation by the internationally renowned artist duo O+A.
It will sonically link two vibrant Boston communities, Northeastern University and Roxbury, which were ultimately severed by the architecture and functionality of Ruggles Station, inaugurated in 1987.
The work promises to attract international attention and reflects on Boston and its neighborhood politics. Community groups and cultural institutions from both neighborhoods are actively planning collaborative accompanying events throughout the spring and summer of 2017 which promise to connect these two neighborhoods. Harmonic Conduit is gutsy yet subtle and supports Boston’s long-term commitment to public art.

Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger are sonic thinkers, composers, and sound artists whose central theme is a "Hearing Perspective” of the world we live in. They are known for their large scale, public space sound installations, which transform city noise into harmony in real-time. O+A have been altering the sonic identity of public spaces with large scale installations since their first resonance installation in Trajan’s forum in Rome, “Traffic Mantra” in 1991. They generate harmony from the chaos of urban noise with “tuning tubes” and specially designed loudspeakers. They have created over 30 such works, both temporary and permanent around the world. Starting in 2009 O+A began to focus on the idea of a "Sonic Commons”, questioning the dominance of the visual culture in our perception of the world.

By collecting human scaled activities from Northeastern and Lower Roxbury - essentially severed by the architecture and functionality of the station - and sending tuned versions to the other side of the station, O+A hope to create a sonic conduit between the communities meanwhile altering the sonic identity of the station itself with a harmonic transformation in scale with human perception.

 

Presented as part of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s exhibition Listen Hear: The Art of Sound with support from the Goethe-Institut.