Gamelan music is perhaps the most iconic and recognizable of all Indonesian music. With a history spanning thousands of years, it is also an intrinsic part of Indonesian culture.
But gamelan is often seen as a relic of the past, used mainly to evoke a sense of history at formal events. But one bule artist from the NYC has taken gamelan music firmly into the 21st century with his creation: The Gamelatron.
As its name implies, the Gamelatron is a fully automated gamelan orchestra with robotic appendages playing the parts of musicians. But the robots don’t play their own music. Instead they play unique digital creations composed by their designer, Aaron Taylor Kuffner.
One of Kuffner’s Gamelatrons is currently being housed in the Chimney NYC, a one-room art venue located in Brooklyn. The Gamelatron features 27 Javanese gongs and mallets on an assembly of five steel towers that encompass the room and its listeners. There is also an ongoing Gamelatron exhibition at the Venice Bienalle.
During the several years he lived in Indonesia, Kuffner learned to play the gamelan and became so fascinated with its sounds that he has created several similar gamelan machines in the past.
He calls his Chimney NYC exhibition “The Gamelatron Urban Sanctuary” and wants it to be a space for citydwellers to be able to viscerally experience gamelan music at an almost spiritual level.
Kuffner told art news website Hyperallergic that part of his intention behind the Gamelatron is to make gamelan music more relevant and interesting to young Indonesians.
“I’m trying to create this other context for the gamelan to be relevant even in modern Jakarta. So by making these instruments, which are kind of folksy, into these bright objects, it’s taking something that is seen as kind of backwards and turning it into something that’s really valuable and shiny and new and flashy.”
For more pictures of the Gamelatron and information on Kuffner’s work and musical philosophy, be sure to read Hyperallergic’s in-depth profile. You can also check out The Gamelatron Project home page.
