Sonic Garden
Laurie Anderson, David Byrne,
Marina Rosenfeld & Ben Rubin
October 17 - November 30, 2002
The Winter Garden
In commemoration of the re-opening of The World Financial Center’s Winter Garden, Laurie Anderson, David Byrne, Marina Rosenfeld, and Ben Rubin, without question some of New York's most visionary sound artists, created new works for a group exhibition of eclectic, site-specific sonic installations entitled Sonic Garden. This rare sonic exhibition was designed to incite a diversity of sensory experiences of physical space that would delight audiences and offer an intimate and curious alternative to ambient noise.
The four artists/composers, each created an individual work of sonic art, to audibly decorate the Winter Garden's voluminous, 120 foot-tall, barrel-vaulted glass architecture with sounds. Laurie Anderson used harmonics and undertones of string instruments and electronics to transform the space into a giant violin; David Byrne surprised visitors with jokes told by Borscht Belt comedians; Marina Rosenfeld released notes that traveled through the atrium like pebbles scattering over the water’s surface; and Ben Rubin broadcast the shouts and calls of commodities traders at the New York Mercantile Exchange, celebrating a longstanding and vital downtown community.
Presented by the World Financial Center Arts & Events Program and Creative Time in celebration of the renewal of Lower Manhattan since 9/11, Sonic Garden redefined interior public art.
