Contributing Artist - Ben Thompson

Artist's Bio:

Ben Thompson is a sculptor/inventor currently living in the Boston area and is presently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree at the Massachusetts College of Art. Drawing on a strong background in metalwork and fabrication, Ben constructs human-scale, reactive, performance oriented steel sculpture. His work has been exhibited in a variety of local venues including the ONI gallery and the Museum of Science as well as in a national travelling sculpture exhibition, Higher Mind, in which he is a founding member. Higher Mind can be found on the web at http://www.highermind.com/

Artist's Statement:

Ben would like to thank the Mass Art crew involved with "Spirited Ruins", including Dana Moser, Etienne de la Croix and Jerry Hoyt. He also thanks the Boston University crew, particularly Laura and Robert, without whom none of this would have happened. He found the project to be a great experience.

Technical Description The six large horns are constructed of steel scaffolding and covered in stretched and heat-shrunk dacron (fig 1). Loudspeakers are located at the apex of each horn. Sound is created by percussing piano wires strung on a metal frame. In virtual space, six large wireframe horns (fig 2) are suspended in a dark void, which is entered through a portal in the Spirited Ruins landscape. Each horn is a virtual analog of one of the horns in physical space and is associated with several different sounds. Each time a horn is triggered by the avatar's proximity to the horn's two trigger zones, a sound is chosen for playback at random from the list of possible sounds for that horn.

Larger Image of physical sculpture

Virtual models provided by Jerry Hoyt