Paul Arendt 

The Sonic Body

Concept: An interactive symphony of bodily noisesCreators: Marcus Woxneryd and Francis Wells
  
  


What does a disease sound like? Artist Marcus Woxneryd wants to know. Having sampled the sounds of London's Liverpool Street station and piped them into a hotel for his last installation, he's now attempting to record the internal workings of human beings and turn them into music. "I want to go as deep inside the human body as you can," he says.

While it proved easy to record a heartbeat or stomach gurgle, advanced equipment was needed to detect, for instance, a creaking muscle. Woxneryd approached heart surgeon Francis Wells who told him that the healthy make relatively little sound; the interesting noises come from damaged bodies. Once the sounds have been assembled, Woxneryd says, he's "going to try to orchestrate them". However, The Sonic Body will be more than a pre-recorded piece of music. As visitors move through the installation, they will directly affect the sounds that they hear. The composition will never be the same twice: "The 'orchestra' will actually be the visitors."

 

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