Play 109 is an interactive sound, video and graffiti installation by Damian Castaldi & Solange Kershaw in collaboration with the artist/programmer Neil Jenkins and Jake Lewis of the Amerg Collective. See the Loop Space website for more details.
Watch a video of the opening night as part of the Renew Newcastle first Friday of the month events in the Newcastle mall on the 4th of December 2009.
Click here to watch video
Play 109 the second in a series of interactive sound installations sodacake are installing in 2009/2010. The first, Play 44 was installed in Melbourne in October 2009 at the historic house, Villa Alba in Kew. Each installation transforms a different location (shopfront, historic house, gallery, mall etc …) into a musical instrument, which people can then engage with and play. The instrument changes uniquely in relation to the location and its surroundings and takes the number of the street address for the title of the work, (as in 109 Hunter St Newcastle and 44 Walmer St Kew).
An underlying influence in this series of sound installations comes from the late 1940’s and 1950’s movement known as Musique Concrète, in that its pioneer Pierre Schaeffer, “emphasized the importance of play (in his terms, jeu) in the creation of music. Schaeffer’s idea of jeu comes from the French verb jouer, which carries the same double meaning as the English verb play: ‘to enjoy oneself by interacting with one’s surroundings’, as well as ‘to operate a musical instrument’.” This notion is the core of Musique Concrète and the underlying influence to Play 109.
