Title:
Harmonic Bridge
Artist(s):
Bill Fontana
Brief description of the work:
"This sound installation reveals the myriad of noises hidden within the Millennium Bridge. A network of vibration sensors have been placed within the bridge turning it into a vast stringed instrument which plays an ever-changing musical composition based on it's surrounding environment. The noise created by pedestrians passing overhead, the wind, bicycles and the architectural elements which make up the bridge have been transformed into a sound installation." (Tate online)
Materials, dimensions, duration:
accelerometer microphones, sound generating software
Location (venue & dates, public/ private):
Millennium Bridge, London, 16.06. -28.08.2006
Audience information (size, mode of participation):
The sound created by the installation could be heard simultaneously in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall and also at Southwark Underground station.
Other information (reviews, collaborators, funders):
A further interactive web piece was made and published online. Users could move the red dots on the bridge drawing (see above) to generate sounds.
Floorplan, scheme:

 
Visual/ audio-visual reference:
Key theme(s):
listening to systems in action; awareness of location
Further context:

https://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/fontana/
mp3/harmonicBridge01.mp3
sound clip 1 (3.4 Mb)

https://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/
fontana/mp3/harmonicBridge02.mp3
sound clip 2 (3.4 Mb)

http://echosounddesign.com/media/Harmonic_Bridge.mov
online video (9.3MB)

"My sound sculptures use the human and/or natural environment as a living source of musical information. I am assuming that at any given moment there will be something meaningful to hear and that music, in the sense of coherent sound patterns, is a process that is going on constantly. " (Fontana online)

Links and further references:

https://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/fontana/default.shtm