Installation view of Making Music Modern: Design for Ear and Eye, The Museum of Modern Art, November 15, 2014–November 1, 2015. Photo: John Wronn
“Don’t you wonder sometimes/’Bout sound and vision?” sings David Bowie wistfully on a track from the album Low, released in 1977. Recently I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how music—an essentially invisible and immaterial art form—grounds us in the physical world, influencing the mood and tone of everyday life. Without it we definitely lose our bearings. MoMA’s Making Music Modern: Design for Ear and Eye exhibition is all about design that connects sensations of ear and eye, sound and vision. You’ll find on display examples of musical instruments, equipment for recording and playback, posters, album covers, song sheets, designs for concert halls, film titles, and more, all drawn from the Museum’s collection. Here’s a quick virtual tour:
Every life has a soundtrack and, increasingly, so do exhibitions. Within a single gallery our biggest challenge was weaving together music of many different styles and periods with several hundred objects and images, and doing it in a way that didn’t flood the space with noise. The music that plays throughout the exhibition ranges from the 1878 “Song of Mister Phonograph” (for piano and tenor voice) to LL Cool J’s space-conquering rap and the sporadic rattle of the Flux Mechanical Orchestra. Check out the entire playlist
Not all music is suited to a gallery environment, plus we can only approximate the acoustic qualities and atmosphere of the spaces for which the music was originally intended, whether that was a living room, concert hall, or club. But our audiovisual team is awesome and inventive! Using wireless and digital gizmos they helped us to craft a musical narrative and to contain the inevitable “sound bleed” between varied elements of the exhibition. Transducer speakers the size of small soup cans turn the glass windows of the central display cases into sounding boards—the displays within literally sing out, or emit ambient sound. In the second half of the exhibition a sequence of mini light-sound “events” has been computer programmed using ISADORA, and suspended parabolic domes, looking like transparent jellyfish, shower passersby with music connected to a spot-lit poster or object. On a more occasional basis the gallery will be animated by musical demonstrations of the Scopitone jukebox, and pop-up appearances like that of Delicate Steve, who put our magnificent 1957 Fender Stratocaster through its paces during the exhibition’s opening-night celebration.
From left: Hard at work installing the Making Music Modern gallery. One of the directional speaker domes is visible in the foreground. Photo: Juliet Kinchin; Delicate Steve plays MoMA’s newly acquired 1957 Fender Stratocaster during the exhibition’s opening-night celebration
In forthcoming blogs posts we’ll be exploring fascinating moments in the history of music-related design, including surprising spaces, outdated technologies, and breakthrough achievements. In the meantime, you can stay tuned via social media using #MakingMusicModern!