(click to enlarge)
Orchestrion is an education based art project that inspires the correlation of sight and sound through the creation of a collective artwork. The artwork on display explores this using visual media to bridge a gap between our eyes and our ears.
When we see a familiar musical instrument we are able to remember the sound that the instrument makes before music is played. Similarly, after we walk away from a waterfall, as we reflect upon its visual beauty we are able to remember the sound even though the roar of falling water can no longer be heard. This project explored our ability to recall sounds by means of visual images, and our ability to relive visual experiences as we are prompted by sound.
In this manner we explored how the objects of our perception together with the manner in which they are perceived to constitute the reality in which we live. Thus as we learn to appreciate our surroundings from differing perspectives, we are drawn into its reality not as helpless observers (as in much of the mass media and commercial representations of "reality" dramatization), but as participants, as it were, agents of change.
Created with Grover Washington Jr. Middle School in North Philadelphia.
