Heartbeat Carillon

 David A. Parker
www.davidparker.name



Abstract:
This installation allows people to reconsider their lives and relations with others in an evocatively powerful way. Arches offer passive, completely safe hand sensors to the sitting visitor.  When grasped, the sensors take a heartbeat reading.  A figure-sized tower has five glass bells arranged like vertebrae in a spine – a reconfiguration of the body as a house of energies. Electronics convert the heartbeat signal into a strike on one bell; the beats continue until the participant releases his/her grip.   As others join in, the rhythms and sounds become more complex, and people are re-acquainted with the life-force common to us all.


Artist Bio
David A. Parker studied literature and Chinese language at Cornell University before studying visual art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He currently lives and works in Chicago.