source: saatchigallery
John Wynne’s untitled installation for 300 speakers, player piano and vacuum cleaner is at once monumental, minimal and immersive. It uses sound and sculptural assemblage to explore and define architectural space and to investigate the borders between sound and music. The piece has three interwoven sonic elements: the ambient sound of the space in which it is installed, the notes played by the piano, and a computer-controlled soundtrack consisting of synthetic sounds and gently manipulated notes from the piano itself. Because none of these elements are synchronised with each other, the composition will never repeat. The music punched into the paper roll is Franz Léhar’s 1909 operetta Gypsy Love, but the mechanism has been altered to play at a very slow tempo and the Pianola modified to play only the notes which most excite the resonant frequencies of the gallery space in which it is installed. Sound moves through the space on trajectories programmed using a 32-channel sound controller, creating a kind of epic, abstract 3-D opera in slow motion. Originally developed at Beaconsfield Gallery, a former Victorian ‘ragged school’ in South London, this piece draws on notions of obsolescence and nostalgia, combining early 20th -century technology and culture with a vast collection of recently discarded hi-fi speakers. These disparate components are brought together through contemporary digital technology which not only distributes the sound but also controls the (found) vacuum cleaner which in turn drives the Pianola. The piece is site-specific, but it also carries traces of its own history: some of the synthetic sounds were created in response to the light industrial ambience of the work’s original location, some in response to its new site in the Saatchi Gallery. The mountainous formation of speakers, inspired by the recycling plant from which they were rescued, functions both visually and as a platform for the projection of sound, creating, in the words of writer Brandon LaBelle, ‘a soft balance between order and chaos, organization and its rupture’.
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source: everydaylistening
John Wynne is a sound artist currently based in the UK. His untitled installation for 300 speakers, player piano and vacuum cleaner plays with contrasts in size: the work is monumental and huge, while the sounds the installation produces are very delicate. In this way he is able to craft an immersive environment where the sound really becomes part of the space itself. The pianola plays some notes of Franz Léhar’s 1909 operetta Gypsy Love at a very low tempo. Synthetic sounds add to this and both the vacuum cleaner as well as the sound spatialisation are controlled through the space by contemporary digital technology. In that way the installation is about bringing together the old and the new, playing with themes like obsolescence and nostalgia.

At the moment, there’s a new show in London with site-specific works by John Wynne as well as Yoonjin Jung exploring one’s inner “movement” in relation to their surroundings. “The Flux, and I” seeks to provide a platform for the audience to detach themselves from the effects of time in order to understand and embrace the inevitable progression of events that we have little or no control over.
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source: arplafr
Installation for 300 speakers de Jhon Wynne est la première pièce sonore de la Saatchi galerie à Londres.Cette installation est composée de 300 haut-parleurs, d’un clavier et d’un tuyau d’aspirateur. Le son du piano mécanique, dissimulé derrière le mur d’enceintes, se superpose à celui d’un ordinateur : les sons s’entrechoquent, rebondissent dans la pièce et sculptent l’espace. Le spectateur est saisi, happé, enveloppé de sons face à cet autel majestueux.
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source: lunettesrougesbloglemondefr
Mais la seule pièce qui ait vraiment retenu mon attention au milieu de tous ces petits maîtres est l’énorme installation de John Wynne, Installation pour 300 hauts-parleurs, un pianola et un aspirateur. Le son du piano mécanique, dissimulé derrière le mur d’enceintes (et jouant Gypsy Love, opérette de Franz Lehár de 1909, mais seulement les notes dont les fréquences entrent en résonance avec la salle) se mêle à celui généré par un ordinateur, les sons s’entrechoquent, rebondissent dans la pièce et sculptent l’espace; le spectateur est saisi, happé, enveloppé de sons face à cet autel majestueux. Première pièce sonore de Saatchi, paraît-il, c’est de loin la meilleure de toute l’exposition.