Disquiet

Killing Buddha 殺佛 is the name of a sound-art installation at Radioartemobile in Rome, Italy, co-created by Staalplaat Soundsystem and FM3 and due to open June 21. The duo FM3 have been posting images of the work-in-progress on their Facebook account (at facebook.com), including those shown in this post.

The Buddha Machine has had an incredible run, from offbeat sound-art gizmo to widely sampled source material to cottage industry, and the Rome exhibition suggests the run will continue for some time.

That such a modest device, none of the constituent parts of which suggest any sort of mainstream success (inexpensive production, low-fie sound quality, abstract audio loops), has captured so many imaginations speaks as much to our time, to the increasing public awareness of sound (apart from music) as a subject of appreciation, as it does to the implicit ingenuity of the beloved gadget’s inventors.

That is neither Christiaan Virant nor Zhang Jian of FM3 hammering nails into a lemon-yellow Buddha Machine, but Geert-Jan Hobijn of Staalplaat.

More at radioartemobile.it and twitter.com/buddhamachine, which seems to have succeeded the Buddha site, fm3buddhamachine.com, as the primary news source on the subject.

In related news, check out the colorful Buddha Machine gallery at flickr.com.

By Marc Weidenbaum