The Musical Wheel is a Musical Painting, this interactive art form created by artist Jean Pierre Muller (B) and composer Sean O'Hagan (UK) and offering a unique combination of sound and vision.
The Musical Wheel is a triptych of three circular freestanding paintings.
Inside the paintings are the Hi Fi speakers and playback hardware that generate the music. By touching the painted panels, the audience interact with the composition the way the studio producer does. They can compose from the eight purposefully performed tracks a unique mix, as the playback progresses.
The theme of the Musical Wheel links the compositional wheels of the painting to the wheels of motor city - Detroit - and the long journey of musical history that passes through that place. For O'Hagan and Muller the fact that this heavy industry was accompanied by music of sweetness and harmony is part of the paradox of pop music's seductive combination of great weight combined with lightness. The roots of white pop in black American soul is here symbolised in the travel of the slaves' descendants, from South to North, from Louisiana and Memphis, through the fields of Kentucky to the factories of Detroit and Chicago.
Labels: The Musical Wheel
