Exhibition: Andy Paiko’s sound collaboration set to debut in Portland

Andy Paiko and Ethan Rose, Transference (detail), 2009. Glass and mixed-media sound installation. Dimensions variable. photo: heather zinger

Next week, Portland-based artist Andy Paiko will take the wraps off a project that has had him spending long days in the hot shop for 8 weeks straight. The end result, a collaboration between this highly skilled glassblower fond of exploring outdated machinery and composer Ethan Rose, will be an updated version of the “armonica,” as developed by Benjamin Franklin, as part of an installation called “Transference” on view at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon, from November 19th through January 9, 2010.

Franklin refined early designs of the “glass harmonica” to orient the sound-making glass vessels horizontally, making them easier to play. Franklin’s design, a collaboration with London glassblower Charles James, had its concert debut in a 1762 performance in London.

Andy Paiko and Ethan Rose, Transference (detail), 2009. Glass and mixed-media sound installation. Dimensions variable. photo: heather zinger

Paiko and Rose’s creation will also perform music, but in this contemporary iteration of the instrument, the sounds will be generated randomly. Paiko blew the 40 wineglass bowls that are mounted on a 3/4 RPM motor. The individual glass elements have been strategically arranged based on the sound each generates. The sound changes based on a simple computer chip that controls the sequence of the sounds.

In an interview, Paiko told the Portland Tribune newspaper that he tries to avoid becoming too process-based. “The glass-making craft has been around for 4,000 years, and the process basically is the same,” he said in an interview you can read here. “It’s easy to fall into the trap of mirroring things. A lot of glass art I see tends to be homogenous; I try to be more original than that.”

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