John Roach

Project drawing of the BQEar at the Art Lot in Red Hook Brooklyn. Click on the image for a larger view.

Overlay drawing of the BQEar on site at the Art Lot. Click on the image for a larger view

A variation on the BQEar imagined on the Brooklyn waterfront. The project is replicable and will inform different sites in different ways. In this particular version, the piece is designed to listen to Brooklyn (left ear) and a distant Manhattan (right ear). Click on the image for a larger view.

03 BQEar by johnroach

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The BQEar is an enormous trumpet-like horn perched atop the fence of the outdoor sculpture venue The Art Lot in Red Hook, Brooklyn as part of a group exhibition in September 2010.

The horn points southeast towards the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and patiently listens to the neighborhood. Of course the BQEar is only a colossal wood funnel snaking through the lot until someone decides to place his or her ear to the small end that pokes out from the metal fence. The BQEar is an invitation to passersby to listen to the neighborhood in a different way. The object (looking not unlike the delicately curving shape of an antique gramophone horn) draws in the sound of Red Hook through its body and, because of its acoustic proper- ties, transforms it into a new and compact soundscape

 

 

 

Nestled Into Red Hook, The Art Lot Perseveres Without Emphasis on Funding
By Angela Basile