the question running through my mind this morning was: how do i integrate music, film and architecture? they seem to be three major interests that i cycle through my life. i guess another way to ask that question is how would i, as a professional designer, incorporate my interest in video and music, which aren't traditionally considered aspects of architecture. perhaps i'm thinking too stereotypically. one of my teachers in grad school always talked about hybridization being the most interesting kind of practice. when two or more things are brought together to the point that it isn't possible to determine where one begins and the other ends you are hybridizing. most people hybridize by procreating. this doesn't interest me but melding objects and ideas does. i suppose if i thought of buildings as sound and visual environments, which they obviously are, and if sound and the purely visual were treated with the same emphasis as the architectonic, then perhaps some form of hybridization might happen. architecture has been called frozen music. from the highway, through the cinema-dimensioned windshields, it looks like a movie. so, what prevents me from letting all this stuff flow? i find myself, more often than i'd like, segregating my interests when they don't need to be. i might even say they want to meld and the only thing keeping them from doing so is my aging sense of propriety. "you can't do that!" anyway, it's more interesting to let them blend. teenagers, with little prejudice, seem to blend, transmogrify, misuse and misinterperet exceptionally well, often to the dismay of their elders, but also often to great effect.
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i remember these power lines in eastern colorado that must have been set up before high tension lines became the norm. instead of a few large cables these poles had maybe 20 or 30 lines strung close together in parallel on low poles next to the railroad. these harmonized with each other making one of the most otherworldly choirs i've ever heard, with all kinds of modulations and crackling. when humid the performance intensified.
the science building at my college, because it was negatively pressured by all the exhaust hoods whistled (and the exterior doors were extremely difficult to open).
in Jersey City, at the Exchange Place PATH station, there is a bank of REALLY long escalators. above the escalators, there's a big neon light sculpture coming from the ceiling. the 1st time I went up the escalators, I heard the most fantastic sound. string instruments or maybe horns of some sort wavering between notes - a vaguely Middle-Eastern sound of music. I thought, "Wow, the artist has incorporated SOUND into this lighting piece! How brilliant!"
Alas, it's just the sound of the machinery moving the escalators. And when they periodically fix (or maybe oil) the escalator, the sound isn't there for a little while, but it eventually comes back, albeit a little quieter.
It's one of my favorite pieces of music.
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