Nebraska-born musician
Christiaan Virant was in Beijing performing drone-like ambient music with his Chinese collaborator Zhang Jian, under the name
FM3 (mostly in Chinese); as pioneers of the electronic movement in China, most of their money came from sound installations at art galleries, which entailed wiring up rooms with sound equipment. Mulling a simpler and cheaper way of doing this, Virant was wandering around a Buddhist temple in southwest China when he spotted a
little plastic box on the altar (one such possible example), piping out loops of the tinny, digitized chants played endlessly at such places. Intrigued, he found two of the devices in the temple gift shop and bought both. The idea of an instant sound installation was born.
That was almost four years ago.
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Jan 17, 2009 -
26 comments
