Her custom resonance chamber is inspired by sound sculptures and exploring spaces with her voice On a bluff on the eastern coast of Iceland, there?s a concrete dome cluster that looks like gray mushrooms sprouting from the earth. It?s a sound sculpture named Tvísöngur, after a traditional Icelandic style of singing. Step inside and sing or whistle or make some sort of noise, and the sculpture comes alive with full, rich resonance. The sounds morph into a different tones and textures as you move throughout the chambers.
For her latest performance, Cornucopia, Björk collaborated with the engineering firm Arup to design her very own reverberation chamber, a space that she could use like a musical instrument to manipulate how her voice sounds. Björk?s performances today are highly produced experiences, and Cornucopia?a residency at the Shed, a new venue in Hudson Yards, that concludes June 1?is her most daring yet. Along with a roster of collaborators, she created custom costumes, visual projections, choreography, set pieces, and more. She describes it as a concert ?where the acoustic and digital will shake hands.? This is where the reverberation chamber comes in. It enables Björk to bring the aural quality of a small-room performance to a sold-out concert hall.
?She wanted to hearken back to when she would discover spaces on her own, like walking into a room within a church or a house or a library and feel the resonance of that room and explore it with her voice,? ...