KPLU Local News
(2010-09-26)
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Ela Lamblin of Lelavision demonstrates a musical sculpture at his studio on Vashon Island.
Photo by Keith Seinfeld
You can find plenty of artists who draw inspiration from science. And you can find scientists who try painting or music. But, you won't find many artists as ambitiously merging the two worlds as a duo from Vashon Island. They're known as Lelavision. They're translating ideas about DNA and evolution into theater and art.
Lelavision is a husband and wife team -- Ela Lamblin and Leah Mann. Their studio is a barn on Vashon Island, filled with metal sculptures that are also musical instruments.
"I had a dream that I was playing a musical plant," he says. "In my dream it was alive, but I decided to make it out of steel and stainless and bronze."
He made it, but he didn't know how to play it. Running up the outside are metal strings, and at first he tapped them with a mallet. Now, he plays it like a cello, using a bow. The sound is ethereal, almost magical, full of metallic harmonies.
Lamblin says they're not really "performance artists," although it is like theater. "It has a little of all these art forms in it, and you cant call it one," he says. "Leah is a choreographer, so there's always an element of choreography and movement in it. And then I make musical instruments, that's what my passion is. Actually, I studied sculpture in college, so I'm trained the most in that form."
Learning how to make sculptures that are actually in tune, and sound musical, is what first drew Lamblin toward science. He had to teach himself the physics of sound. He learned how different materials vibrate, and what harmonics they create. He had a little advice from Seattle's most famous creator of instruments, Trimpin, but figured most of it out through reading and experimenting.
Ela Lamblin of Lelavision demonstrates some of his musical sculptures at his studio on Vashon Island. Photos by Keith Seinfeld
"I've always been primarily inspired by the natural world, in terms of form and design and the shape of things. So, science as a practice of observing, in that part of science, is a direct link to what I was interested in," he says.
During the early years of Lelavision, they performed at international children's festivals, across the U.S. and Europe. After a show in Atlanta, they were invited to collaborate with scientists at Emory University. The scientists are hoping artists can make evolution and genetics accessible to the public. When Lamblin and Mann met with some biologists, Mann says they found several themes rich with visual and symbolic possibilities.
"The first things I look for are the action words, because as a choreographer I can latch onto that," she says. " Oh, it's a verb, we can move with that.' And after that, it's just playing with the material."
| Here Leah Mann and Ela Lamblin of Lelavision explore the notion of spontaneous assembly of molecules to realize emergent forms. Their props are stainless steel spheres made by Ela . This video is part of a collaboration between Lelavision and Dr. David Lynn, Professor of Bio Molecular Chemistry at Emory University. The Collaboration has also spawned a live performance titled "the Accumulation of Change". |
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| Choreographer Leah MannPhoto courtesy of Lelavision |
They represent the molecules with shiny metal balls, which look like giant steel marbles, ranging from the size of a cantaloupe to a beach ball. Of course, they're also musical. At a performance in Seattle, called "Accumulation of Change," you could see the balls laid out on stage. Ela picks one up and starts blowing into a hole on the side, and tapping out a rhythm.
One by one, he adds other sounds, using a recorded loop. Then he and Leah start playfully dancing, putting the balls together, like toy molecules. They're presenting the idea that individuals, moving around randomly, naturally start to form patterns.
"All the molecules are moving around in chaos," says Lamblin. "Then the right condition is there, and they start to build a structure, something that's visible."
You might or might not get that idea just by watching, so onstage walks a rumpled professor, talking about patterns. "Patterns are all around us," says biochemist David Lynn, of Emory, as he reads a quasi-lecture over the rhythmic music.
Lelavision decided scientists should join them onstage to really bring the two worlds together. Lynn admits he's not too comfortable on stage, but he has other similarities to the artists.
"The process of discovery, the process of not knowing, the process of trying things you imagine might help you understand truth, are the same," he says.
Lamblin says there it was an experimental process getting each steel ball perfectly tuned. He says the shape of a sphere is almost magical for sound - because of the way it resonates.
"You can find the place where it gets loud," he says, at a certain pitch, just like blowing into a bottle.
Each musical sculpture he creates looks a little like an instrument you've seen before. But if you see a piano or cello or clarinet, you know what to expect. With these, you're always wondering what will happen.
| An art video produced as part of a collaboration between Lelavision Physical Music and Dr. David Lynn of Emory University, professor of Biomolecular Chemistry. The concept of organization and community scales from the molecular level, to the organismal level, to the societal level. There are lessons that can be learned from each of these link scales in terms of how the system operates. |
Lelavision performs a portion of the new epigenetics show at the Tacoma Museum of Glass on November 26-28.
Lelavision's website
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