#bell machine

For the High Line Plinth, Jonathan Berger (b. 1980, New York, NY. Lives and works in New York) proposes Bell Machine, a working carillon that exists simultaneously as a piece of sculpture and an instrument. The piece consists of a structure housing a large metal drum, whose rotation activates a series of small hammers that ring the 183 bells which are suspended above—operating much like a music box or player piano. Berger proposes to work with The Verdin Company, America’s oldest bell foundry, to design, fabricate, and assemble the carillon’s structural framework, bells, and mechanics. Berger plans to collaborate with artist and musician Michael Stipe, who will write eighteen musical pieces for the carillon, each of which will play for one of the eighteen months that the work is on view.