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. 

We're excited to announce the High Line Plinth, a new landmark destination on the High Line for a rotating program of contemporary artworks! Congratulations to the 12 shortlisted artists for the first two inaugural commissions: Jonathan Berger, Minerva Cuevas, Jeremy Deller, Sam Durant, Charles Gaines, Lena Henke, Matthew Day Jackson, Simone Leigh, Roman Ondák, Paola Pivi, Haim Steinbach, and Cosima von Bonin.

Mỹ Lai

Kronos Quartet, Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ, and Rinde Eckert

2022

On March 16, 1968, the United States Army killed over 500 unarmed civilians in the hamlet of Mỹ Lai, Vietnam. The unimaginable brutality of the event impacted all those who witnessed it firsthand, including helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson, who, against orders, intervened to save Vietnamese lives. Thompson’s story is the basis of the opera Mỹ Lai, composed by Jonathan Berger (music) and Harriet Scott Chessman (libretto) for Kronos Quartet, Vietnamese multi-instrumentalist Vân-Ánh Vanessa Võ, and vocalist Rinde Eckert.

In 2015 UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineer and materials scientist Jonathan Berger developed an idea that could change the way people think about high-performance structural materials. Two years later, his concept is paying research dividends.

In a letter published in the journal Nature, Berger, with Robert McMeeking,a UCSB materials and mechanical engineering professor, and materials scientist…