DESCRIPTION:
Michele Spanghero
"Echea – Teatro Scientifico Bibiena, Mantova" (2014)
sound sculpture

painted glass, brass, speaker, stainless steel pedestal
(dim. 67 x 44 x 44 cm – dur. 6' loop)

The sound sculpture "Echea" take its name from the amphoras used in ancient times to spread the sound up to the last steps of amphitheaters, “echea” as Vitruvius called them. The physical principle by which a hollow object filters out certain specific sound frequencies has been studied at the end of the nineteenth century by the German physicist Helmholtz who created some brass resonators. The sound sculpture is therefore an “echea” shaped as Helmholtz resonator, inside which is played back the recording of the resonance of the ancient Teatro Bibiena in Matua (Italy). This resonator is in fact much more than the classical “echea” which Vitruvius described, it contains the monologue of the theater and transmits a critique of what these theaters are at risk of becoming: ruins of time.

2014 © M. Spanghero
courtesy the artist and Galerie Mazzoli

www.michelespanghero.com