In a little more than a month, an eleven-foot, sound-emitting gazebo will sit on the Tisch Library roof as part of a sound experiment that over 100 people have come together to create.
Entitled "Harmony in the Age of Noise," the project will be part of a month-long art exhibition, designed by Professor of Anthropology David Guss, that calls on members of the Tufts community to notice the role of noise in their everyday lives.
Students have contributed in a variety of ways to the project. For one, senior Tina Yi is in charge of designing the project's Web site.
"I have to admit that I was very confused when we first started discussing the project because there are so many parts, but as the semester started, it really did come together," she said. "It's evolved into something so big and positive."
Helping Guss to design the gazebo has become a major class project for "Art, Activism, & Community: Visual Art for Social Change," an Experimental College course taught by Mindy Nierenberg. The class has met with Guss to discuss how the gazebo can incorporate different elements of life at Tufts.
Senior Nikki Bruce, who is enrolled in the course, explained that the purpose of this project is to allow students to notice the noises that surround them.
"The idea is that we live in a socity of unintentional, unnoticed noise that are accidents of industrialization," she said. "We are trying to make people aware of that."
Senior Sarah Moshontz de la Rocha has been working alongside Bruce.
"Public art should not only be site-specific, it should be interactive and meaningful to the community around it," she said. "In this case, the community is creating it."
The class has also been collaborating with sculptor Mark McNamara, composer Bruce Odland and media artist Michael Luck Schneider to help plan the construction.
"[McNamara] came in with an idea of what he was doing and a design, then we all discussed what materials we could use, what types of materials we would find on the Tufts campus," sophomore Becky Baumwoll said. "We collected the materials and we're constructing it as part of our class. We've been brainstorming with him in our class periods. ... Next week ... we're going to start construction."
For an in-depth look at "Harmony in the Age of Noise," see Weekender, page 5.
