Myriad III (2024)
(Installation for Music Boxes and Instruments)

\ˈmir-ē-əd\ n. 16C OE, Gk- (myrio) Countless, boundless, infinite, untold; an indefinitely great number of persons or things; a myriad of ideas and possibilities. innumerable: "the myriad stars of a summer night". Originally designed and built for the 2015 Architecture Biennale in Shenzhen, the music box installation Myriad was then presented in Hong Kong and in 2016 Seoul, South Korea, on invitation of the Goethe Institute. In 2017, Myriad was shipped back to Europe and the installation was shown first at Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele and then at Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker. Composed of 2,464 identical music box mechanisms, Myriad, although masked in manufactured uniformity, is a sonic representation of a paradoxical reality. Mass-produced in China, the components are visually indistinguishable, yet the turning of the music box key reveals an array of inner auditory diversity. Composed of fifty-four melodies which encompass a vastly broad spectrum of copyright-free melodies, the distinctly recognizable sounds of the music boxes exude an innate sense of familiarity, of childhood intimacy. The individual melodies create a collective polyphonic composition projecting surfaces of sound into the acoustic space. Heard alone the individual melodies are distinctly fragile and quiet: en mass the music boxes create a startling sonic image mirroring the quasi-brutalistic structure of the 19 metre-long installation. Myriad is powered through the interactive collaboration of visitors who compose a unique sonic image; a collective melody - generating a continually evolving cacophony.