Son et Lumiere: Volunteer Park Archeologies
Volunteer Park Conservatory

A sound and video installation
by Dan Senn with Ken Slusher

 March 2001
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DESCRIPTION 
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Son et Lumiere: Volunteer Park Archeologies will be held at the Volunteer Park Conservatorium in of March in 2001 and continue 
for three weeks with the Over'lyre remaining in place permanently.  Video monitors and kinetic instruments are placed amidst plants 
throughout the Conservatorium will continuously play a composition for voice, percussion, and moving audience.  Spoken sounds 
will consist of plant and gardening experts divulging pre-chemical secrets of gardening, canning, seed gathering, and related life 
stories.  These will be presented over 20 color and monochrome video monitors and act as a visual-spoken counterpoint 
to the light beating of Dan Senn's pendulum-based sculptural instruments. Interviews will be collected at the homes of regional 
gardeners in the fall of 2000.  The installation will coincide with the opening of the Gardens of Art  exhibit at the nearby 
Asian Art Museum and developed with assistance from the V. P. Conservatorium and the Friends of the Conservatorium.  
Admission to the exhibition will be free.
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MOTIVATIONS
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A goal of this project is to provide experimental art within contexts uniquely accessible to new audiences.  As long time gardeners, 
both artists are interested and comfortable documenting the stories of gardening experts, but there is an ulterior motive; one 
which is based on the conviction that new, and risky  art,  if considerately placed, is especially understandable to those who 
work with their hands.  And this defines one of our target audiences. By holding this exhibition cooperatively with the 
Conservatorium, the regular Conservatory guests will experience the new work, but it will also attract audiences interested the 
stories, or just in those being interviewed, and/or those interested in the sound, video and aesthetic aspects.  Through a broader 
appeal, we expect the installation to be of mutual benefit to the Conservatory, community and to art world itself. 
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