Playing the Building

Creative Time's newest installation opened May 31 to huge crowds and rave reviews. A project by David Byrne- yes, of the Talking Heads, but also a visual and sonic artist who dabbles in books- Playing the Building installs an old church organ in the historic Battery Maritime Building on the southern tip of Manhattan, hooking up the keyboard to the columns, girders, and water pipes of the historic space by a system of pneumatic tubes that allow anyway to literally "play" the building.

You can see more about the project (and see pictures from opening) on our website here, read what the New York Times had to say here, check out the Village Voice here or New York magazine here or NPR here, read about it on David's blog journal here and get some dish on The Bwog here, but I know the opinion you all care most about is Clio's.


As soon as she walked in to the ante-room, she declared "I like it!"

Dave got in line to play the organ, and Clio and I walked around the 9,000 square foot space listening to the grunts and creaks of the old, lovely, skylit building. Some of the organ's more powerful notes sound like tubas or thunder, and Clio was a bit less sure of those ("Sounds!" and "Noisy.") but all in all she gives the project the thumbs up.

Eventually, she took a stab at playing the thing herself.

She spent most of her time reconfiguring the seating arrangement, but luckily Grandma recently taught her to play the piano; otherwise she might have missed the point entirely. The sound is not at all good on this little video clip, but if you listen closely, you can hear that Clio is playing the "flutes," and Dave is playing the clunkier girders. You can also see a more professional video on creative time's aforementioned website. But then, that one doesn't feature Miss Clio Grace Peterson.