VIOLIN

MATTEO BOATO – 2014

Matteo Boato puts forward the idea of a musical instrument as an element built by humans and returned to a natural environment. The bridge of a violin reproduced on a large scale in oukumé wood is an artefact that establishes a physical but also an acoustic relationship with its surroundings, setting up a dialogue between local sounds and the notes produced by the instrument.

Four steel strings stretched to either side of the bridge render the instrument playable. Since it is located at the only point on the itinerary from which it is possible to hear the sound of the nearby stream, the murmur of the water has pride of place in the discourse with the strings. And the bridge, in addition to allowing the strings to be drawn, also sends the soundwaves downwards. In a conventional bowed instrument this means allowing the sound to enter the sound box to be amplified. In the artist’s work, on the other hand, the sound reverberates almost imperceptibly through the earth, turning the whole wood into a sound box.