Created through collaboration between Sebastien Leoon Agneesens, New York-based French musician and artist, and Situ Fabrication, the sculpture was produced as an exhibition piece for B Brian Atwood’s New York showroom. Named after a medieval mythological poisonous snake, the Leontophone is a sound sculpture aiming to poetically hypnotize its audience through visual and sonic stimuli.
Born from the encounter of op art and glam rock, the 32-foot long piece is composed of 174 mirrored aluminum keys reflecting distorted images of reality. The Leontophone plays a looped original melody created on a vibraphone filtered with electric guitar pedals.
The sculpture consists of 174 hexagonal, polished aluminum tiles which form a 30 ft. long serpent-like figure. To fix each individual tile in a precise location and angle, Situ Fabrication designed a plywood armature that supported threaded rods with swivel fittings. The positions and lengths of the threaded rod as well as the angle of the swivels were all coordinated so that the complex, tessellated form could rise from a simplified plywood armature. Read the rest of this entry »