The Singing Ringing Tree (A Panopticons Sculpture)
Via DJ Dead Billy, thanks!
Designed and built by the architecture team of Tonkin Liu and completed in 2006, this award-winning sound sculpture called The Singing Ringing Tree stands atop a plateau in the Pennine mountain range overlooking Burnley in Lancashire, England. It’s one of a series from the Panopticons arts and regeneration project.
Galvanized steel pipes of various sizes are bound together in a nine-foot-tall, spiraling configuration. Depending on where and how the wind strikes it, The Singing Ringing Tree creates discordant choral sounds over a range of several octaves. Tonkin Liu tuned the pipes “according to their length by adding holes to the underside of each.” The eerie music created as a result is capable of ringing out across great distances.
Photo by Felix Spencer
April 28th, 2011 at 2:34 am
amazing, and genius…but it sounds like the Bloop – clearly the architect has devised a homing signal for creatures rising from the deep.
April 29th, 2011 at 8:39 am
[…] To find out more about this wonderful work of art and sound visit Coilhouse. […]
April 29th, 2011 at 8:39 pm
Some years ago, I considered building something similar, but smaller scale, and powered by a steam boiler, for a class. I was dissuaded from pursuing the idea, but I still like it. And the ambient nature of this is very good. I do wonder how the local feel about it, though.