Zimoun's sound sculptures
Zimoun's sound sculptures
five room-scale sound installations by the Swiss artist Zimoun, built from motors, cardboard boxes, cotton balls, and wire, repeated hundreds of times. i was a student artist assistant on the install.
installation views · NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery
each piece is a sound composition and a sculpture: one small unit, like a motor, a cotton ball, and a box, repeated until it fills the room.
working with the artist's team, i helped build frames and platforms, mount motors and boxes, wire them to power, and test them.
the show opened in February 2019 with five installations.
hear it
a recording of the installations.
hundreds of the same part
precision mattered more than speed: every unit had to match, or the sound and the pattern broke.
another piece
the room-sized commission.
it was my first large-scale installation, and i couldn't test as i went.
i had done each of these steps before, but small, where i could check every part as i built it. here a piece could only be tested once enough of it was finished, so i had to follow the instructions and the design plan closely and ask other people to look over my work.
doing the same steps over and over, like mounting motors, under experienced technicians also sharpened my hands-on skills.