Burlington, Vermont - April 22, 2011
Chimes, aliens, church-- everyone has their own interpretation.
"It reminds me when I was a boy chasing grasshoppers in the field and the music reminds me of being free-- and whole," Jack Kearnan said.
Kearnan, like many others, stopped in his tracks Friday to take a closer look at a solar-powered sound installation at UVM called Sun Boxes.
Craig Colorusso said, "I'm here, the sun is here; why don't we make something together?"
Colorusso created the piece and calls himself a recovering musician. Sun Boxes were his way of removing the barrier between audience and performer.
"I've played in a lot of bands, played on a lot of tours and I ended up here. I wanted to make something that people could feel a part of and for me that's the physicality of Sun Boxes," he explained.
"I walked by and heard these tones and I'm a little bit in awe," Jordan Salei said. "So I'm having a nice time."
"They're beautiful," viewer Sera Fleishman said. "They draw you closer and it's an emotional response kind of. I really like it."
Colorusso says the concept is simple. "Inside each box is a PC board. On the board is a sampler. In the sampler is a pre-recorded guitar note and they're all programmed to play continuously as long as there's enough sun."
More sun means more power which equals more volume. When the clouds roll in it gets quieter and can even stop.
"Part of the vibration and energy that I felt from it attracted me like a magnet," Kearnan said.
"I like the fact that Sun Boxes need the sun because we all need the sun," Colorusso said.
With 20 different speakers and different notes it can take the boxes up to one year to repeat their song.
"Our campus is all about sustainability and it's a piece that will continue forever as long as we have sun," Fleishman said.
"It's like music from the sun," Kearnan said. "That's my interpretation and that's awesome because that's real nature singing to us."
And this band doesn't hit a wrong note.
"They don't get tired. This is the best band I've ever been in; nobody whines, no one gets hungry; they just do what they're told," Colorusso said.
"I think they're beautiful," Salei said. "I love art that interacts with the world and nature and makes us participatory in it."
The artist and the sun working in harmony to create this solar song.
Click here for more information on Sun Boxes and where the exhibit will travel to next.
Gina Bullard - WCAX News
