B R O A D W A Y

Five channel installation. Five columns, 60 exciters. Comissioned by Swiss Institute, New York City. Duration of loop 20 minutes. 2007 ©

For the gallery at the Swiss Institute, Jacob Kirkegaard has produced a new work named after its location on Broadway in Manhattan, New York City.

"Broadway" is a five-channel sound installation comprising the columns that run through the gallery space and the entire building. Although elements of the building’s architecture, the columns also transmit subtle vibrations generated by movement on the street and subway below.
The internal sound of each column was recorded with accelerometers and is played back into the columns by means of sixty small exciters. Thus the five columns are transformed into loudspeakers, each of which plays out the sounds of Broadway in its individual resonant frequency.

With this piece, Kirkegaard not only outlines a multifaceted portrait of Broadway as idea, location and historical concept - he also offers a unique means of experiencing the reverberations of an urban environment, conducted vertically by the columns.

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B R O A D W A Y

For the gallery at the Swiss Institute, Jacob Kirkegaard has produced a new work named after the Swiss Institute's location on Broadway in Manhattan.

The piece "Broadway" is a five-channel sound installation that comprises the columns that run through the gallery space. Although elements of the building’s architecture, the columns also transmit subtle vibrations generated by movement on the street below. The internal sound of each column has been recorded with accelerometers and is played back into the columns by means of sixty small exciters. Thus the five columns are transformed into loudspeakers, each of which plays the sounds of Broadway in its individual resonant frequency.

With this piece, Kirkegaard not only outlines a multifaceted portrait of Broadway as idea, location and historical concept - he also offers a unique means of experiencing the reverberations of an urban environment, conducted vertically by the columns.

Freelance curator Marie Koelbaek Iversen initiated the collaboration between Jacob Kirkegaard and the Swiss Institute. The exhibition is shared with photographer Georg Gatsas. The exhibition ran at the Swiss Institute (http://swissinstitute.net) in New York City from March 20th to May 7th 2007.

The installation BROADWAY was generously supported by The Danish Arts Council.

YOU CAN READ CURATOR MARIE KOELBAEK IVERSEN'S TEXT ABOUT BROADWAY HERE.

The text was originally written for Danish for the Danish magazine "Dansk Musik Tidsskrift"