Playing The Building

David Byrne is in Sweden where he has transformed Stockholm's Fargfabriken gallery into a gigantic instrument. From the Reuter's article:

The founder of the band "Talking Heads" has turned a disused paint factory by the Stockholm waterside into a giant musical instrument, constructed around an old wooden pump organ with its entrails ripped out and replaced with wires and pipes.

"The public can just come in and sit down and play what they like," he told Reuters this weekend while the installation at "Fargfabriken" ("The Paint Factory") was being set up.

"Playing the Building" is not a Byrne concert but a hands-on art installation that runs until mid-November.

The organ's keys and stops are linked to dozens of clear plastic tubes that pump air through the factory vents to make a range of whistle noises, bang hammers that clank against hollow iron pillars and start four engines ranged on the roof.

The Fargfabriken site is in Swedish but they have some tantalizing photos (1, 2, 3, 4, 5 -- click in the bottom right corner of the photo where it says "nasta>" to see the next photo, or click "stor bild" to see a larger version of the photo you are looking at) of the large-scale geekery that went in to this project.