Rockefeller Center is proud to present artist Sarah Meyohas’ “Dawn Chorus” and “Speculations” at the Top of the Rock Observation Deck. Both of Meyohas’ works will be on display from July 15 through Sept. 12.
Sarah Meyohas is a French-American conceptual artist who has been spearheading crypto art. In 2015, Meyohas created Bitchcoin, a cryptocurrency that was backed up by her physical artwork. It was the first “proto-NFT,” to tokenize physical art. Her work focuses on the natural world and the things that govern it. A mix of AI and organic life forms, ironically enough her artwork depicts the very natural world her crypto entrepreneurship is serving to destroy.
Meyohas’ work has been exhibited in New York at Red Bull Arts, 303 Gallery, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art as well as in international institutions in London and Shanghai.
Her first exhibit, “Dawn Chorus,” features birds singing in a magnificent display of color and sound. The sound of the piano mimics the trick of a fountain, referencing classical tropes like the fountain of youth and the fountain of life. The exhibit uses many key elements of composition but one of the most important ones is the “electromagnetic dawn chorus,” a phenomenon that refers to radio waves being converted at dawn. She utilizes the flute, an instrument not unlike a bird’s natural song, to enhance the experience of the bird calls and piano.
“It’s choreography,” Meyohas said. “The merging of animation and music.”
The composition was developed algorithmically and is similar to sections from whole-tone scale compositions, or compositions in “augmented scale,” built from notes with intervals of a whole note, poetically rhyming with the “augmented reality” offered by Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 headsets. The exhibit is also presented in collaboration with Yamaha who donated 1 of its Disklavier DC7X ENSPIRE PRO.
“Dawn Chorus” features visual art as well, as viewers will wear a headset that displays holographic birds singing and dancing, it’s so real you can almost feel them. Meyohas stated that the installation has “a bit of Disney” in it. Movies like “Fantasia”, a mix of animation and music continue to inspire her.
Also on display will be “Speculations.” The installation is composed of 8 large-scale vinyl photographs. These pictures are attached to the glass frames that overlook the New York City skyline. The artwork was created by manipulating physical surfaces that are reflective and water, this technique created the image of tunnels that seemingly never end.
