Bowed Piano
Few chamber groups deploy their musicians as oddly as the Bowed Piano Ensemble. The 10 players, students led by the composer Stephen Scott, stand around, and sometimes under, a concert grand, armed with items of all kinds — nylon fishing line, piano hammers, guitar picks, strips of paper, rolls of plumber’s tape — and reach into the instrument to draw sounds from its strings.

Labor
What does labor smell like? Labor is a dynamic, self-regulating art installation that re-creates the scent of people exerting themselves under stressful conditions. There are, however, no people involved in making the smell – it is created by bacteria propagating in the three glass bioreactors. Each bioreactor incubates a unique species of human skin bacteria responsible for the primary scent of sweating bodies: Staphylococcus epidermidis, Corynebacterium xerosis and Propionibacterium avidum. As these bacteria metabolize simple sugars and fats, they create the distinct smells associated with human exertion, stress and anxiety. Their scents combine in the central chamber with which a sweatshop icon, the white t-shirt, is infused as the scents are disseminated. The scent intensifies throughout the exhibition.