Illuminus, Boston based nighttime contemporary art event, awakens the Green Monster into a massive percussion instrument.
Say the words Green Monster in Boston — or even much of New England — and Red Sox fans at least will know what you’re talking about. It’s the nickname for Fenway Park‘s notoriously high left-field wall.
Photo by Rob Eckel
What people may not realize is that it can also be a huge percussion instrument — or at least it will be, thanks to the vision of Illuminus, the site-specific contemporary art event hosted by HUBweek. An annual event, HUBweek is a week-long collaboration between MIT, Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital and The Boston Globe. It’s focus? Where art, science and technology collide.
Photo by Rob Eckel
Waking the Monster, one of over 30 events Illuminus will stage during HUBweek, will feature percussionist Maria Finkelmeier, who is the head percussionist and overseer of this multi-media event. (There will be a light show to complement the music.) She is aided by Ryan Edwards, who wrote one of the pieces being performed. All told, nine musicians will play on various parts of the steel structure.
Ethan Vogt, director of programming of Illuminus, says the two-hour show will be repeated twice and will be visible from the street as well as from within the stadium. While Illuminus has staged many events during HUBweek, Vogt says this will be among the trickiest. “There are certainly technical challenges,” he says. “A lot of work has gone into a system so musicians will strike the surface and that will translate through a sensor and cue a light.”
While there are undoubtedly easier ways to create public art, Vogt says Illuminus is dedicated to changing how public art is created. Public art used to be, he says, a piece of sculpture placed outdoors rather than the same piece placed inside a museum. “There was a time in the ‘70s and ‘80s when that was what public art was considered,” he says.
Photo by Rob Eckel
From there, installation practice evolved to consider how artwork functions more directly with a specific site. “In our case that creates a moment and an experience,” Vogt says. “The artwork doesn’t exist without the crowd who is witnessing or participating in it. That’s of interest to artists we work with. We select sites very carefully. Then artists go on site tours. Then artists can make proposals that respond to the site and the context of the event. We feel it a vital form of public art.”