An electronic and pneumatic installation of objects inspired by Luigi Russolo’s 1913 Futurist manifesto “L’arte dei rumori” (The Art of Noises). In his manifesto, Russolo argues for a new kind of music — one that reflects the noise of the industrial city, rather than the stale, artificial, and limited sounds of orchestral music. Russolo also designed a series of instrument for producing the noises required for his new Futurist music: the intonarumori.

In this installation at Grizzly Grizzly in Philadelphia, the violent, raw, brutal, and limitless spectrum of noise that Russolo’s manifesto described is toned down and limited to low-fi reproductions of mundane electronic notifications and un-alarming alerts. The large, dark, and clumsy boxes of Russolo’s intonarumori are translated into the alternately flaccid and puffed-up translucent plastic forms: the smooth, clean, light(lite), and non-confrontational aesthetic of a passive and pacified culture. Russolo’s exclamation of dismissal and disgust of “via!” — aimed at the traditional orchestral music of his time — has been crudely blown-up from the PDF version of the manifesto and stuck to the wall.