Sonic portal
installation for Automated piano, two speakers and bell bowls
Commissioned by Tel Aviv art department
Sonic Portal, 2020
Under the pergolas at the end of Gan Meir park, Alon Peretz places a piano with a pair of speakers inside, from which emanate sound recordings from webcams around the world. The recordings comprise a sound collage that opens a portal to the world, and include, among others, a beehive in Germany, a train station in a town in the middle of America, a hairdresser in Sri Lanka, and a water reservoir in East Africa. Automatic mechanisms that play the piano keys create a meditative musical landscape that opens a window to the soul. Together with the hanging bells that surround the work and invite visitors to the garden to play them, Peretz creates a space of shared listening in a concert without a player.
