Abstract Resonators

The relationship between music and number is grounded in solid matter — in the bodies that resonate according to physical properties such as length, mass, and volume. The instruments in this exhibit short-circuit the physical passage between music and mathematics: they exist in an abstract or conceptual space, possessing dimensions and acoustic properties impossible to realize in the material world — but possible to imagine.

Sentient Sounds

We like to think we wield our instruments to our own ends. But from antiquity to the modern age, we find musical instruments that turn living beings into mere components of a larger design. Alternately comical and cruel, these instruments unsettle the boundary between agents and objects, humans and machines, and prompt us to wonder — as listeners and musicians — how far our instruments exert control over us.

Acousmatic Instruments

When we cannot see the source of a sound, we are liable to imagine what caused it. When the sound is one we have never heard before, the source we imagine is likely to be other than the reality. The instruments in this exhibit arise from the process of real sounds spurring the imagination to unreal(ized) instruments. The medium of radio was particularly conducive to imaginative leaps from sound to source, but examples can also be found in stage genres such as opera. We suspect many more imaginary instruments belonging to this category are out there, waiting to be found.

Keyboard Interfaces

Dating back to the organs of antiquity, the keyboard has proven an enduring interface for real and imaginary instruments alike. Two main dreams animate the imaginary instruments employing keyboard interfaces: the ability to control fantastical sound-producing elements (cats, children); and the ability of a single musician to control a whole universe of sounds (Gambara’s Panharmonicon, Holywelkin's Orchestra). Sometimes the keyboard itself is the subject of imaginative extension, testing at once the limits of technology and technique (Wendy Carlos's Generalized Keyboard).

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