Design
The installation is a set of musical bells like a carillon, but dispersed across a small field rather than hidden in a tower. Our primary impetus is that the bells are also sculptural forms to be seen and approached. Being able to see the different shapes and hear how they sound is fundamental to the aural/visual aesthetic of the project and the underlying concept of integrating the various traditional bell forms. Naturally the bells sound very different when you are standing in the middle of the installation to when you are 100 metres away at the edge of the park.
The installation is a public musical instrument. The bells are struck by computer controlled hammers programmed to play MIDI compositions. On a daily basis (8.00 am and 5.00 pm) sequences composed for the bells by 7 Australian composers play, allowing people to wander amongst the bells for an exhilarating experience or sit nearby and enjoy their clear and gentle musicality. While bells were once amongst the loudest sounds people would normally hear, they are now often drowned out by traffic and amplified music. These bells can usually be heard within about 100 metres in the relatively quiet riverside park. The sequencing of the bells uses standard musical software and the bell sounds can be downloaded from this site, allowing composers from anywhere in the world to write works for the bells and send them as MIDI files over the internet for performance.
Read more about this topic: Federation Bells
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