Gamelan often accompanies traditional performances of Wayang Kulit, or shadow puppets, which tell elaborate stories drawn from Hindu texts, Indonesian myth, current politics and folk tales.
"Encountering Resonance: Aaron Taylor Kuffner’s Gamelatron" is on view at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum through May 23, 2021. A Gamelatron is a sound-producing kinetic sculpture presented as site-specific installations and stand-alone artworks. They are made from bronze and iron instruments derivative of Indonesia’s thousand-year-old sonic tradition Gamelan, retrofitted with mechanical mallets on sculptural mounts. The pieces are connected to a physical computing system that transcribes digital compositions into an array of electrical pulsations that results in a ghostly musical automaton.
