What do we think about when we think about the Eiffel tower?
Most of us envision the famous iron monument in our heads - and no wonder, it is among the most recognizable structures in the world. But Joseph Bertolozzi contends that the Eiffel Tower is more than an image. His mission is to "play the Eiffel Tower" by striking its surfaces and recording the vibrant voice hidden within the iron structure. After two weeks of recording on the 324 meter tower, Joseph and his team now have a compilation of more than 2,000 samples awaiting to be arranged into a composition.
This is not Joseph Bertolozzi's first public art project combining architecture and music. In 2004, it was the Mid-Hudson Bridge that provided the percussive instrument and musical medium for his "Bridge Music" project.
That is all raw percussive sounds that Joseph collected and assembled from the bridge in a long and strenuous process:
"We put contact microphones on the surfaces and I would hit that surfaces 3,4,5 times hard, then 4,5 times medium, and 4,5 times soft; and we did that with all the surfaces that we recorded and then I went back to the studio and it took me a couple of months to sift through those and pick, not only the best sounding ones but the most representative ones; So, we whittled down maybe 1,200 samples down to about 300 and used those sounds to compose 'Bridge Music'."