“… and my room still rocks like a boat on the sea… (Caruso’s Dream)
Brian Goggin with Dorka Keehn
2012-2014
Hovering delicately above the sidewalk, a sculptural canopy of angled and overlapping glass and steel pianos is held aloft in the eaves along the building’s frontage. These pianos, made from salvaged factory windows, are the building blocks of a physically commanding monumental sculpture. Brimming with entropic energies of a force of nature, this arrangement of materials on the side of a building evokes a precarious equilibrium of objects in space.Upright, grand and baby grand pianos, are intricately tied together with rope and supported from below by finely crafted wood braces. Here the formal rather than the functional qualities of the somewhat familiar components make up a single cohesive sculpture, citing Land Art in an Urban setting and bricolage emphasizing the artistic opportunities in quotidian objects.
The pianos glimmer and shimmer during the day, as rays of natural light refract through the glass pianos and create brilliant prismatic patterns on the building and the sidewalk. From dusk until dawn warm light emanate from the pianos, harmonically flickering to the majesty of Enrico Caruso’s operatic recordings. It is as if Enrico Caruso and his fellow performers appear as illuminated essences moving inside the pianos passing from one to another inside the composition, as actors move across a stage. An operatic drama unfolds as pedestrians discover the source and relationship of faint stirrings of opera music. By tuning into a short range FM transmitter, hidden within a single piano, discerning listeners will discover that they may be serenaded by the particular Caruso recording which inspired that moment’s light visualization dancing through the pianos.
- Inspiration
- Fabrication
- The Team
- Engineering
- Michael Rauner Photography
- Visualizations, Lighting & Music
- Sketches & Renders
- Installation
- Unveiling
Enrico Caruso
After singing Carmen in San Francisco, the loved tenor Enrico Caruso woke the next morning in his room at the Palace Hotel to the fantastic shaking of the 1906 Earthquake. “But what an awakening!” he was quoted in the newspaper, “…feeling my bed rocking as though I am on a ship in the ocean, and for a moment I think I am dreaming.”  This artwork imagines Caruso’s dream on that fateful night.
Caruso’s fame was not only attributed to his voice and musicianship but also to a tech-savvy business sense and an enthusiastic embrace of commercial sound recording, a brand new technology at the time. His 1904 recording of Vesti la Giubba was the first to sell a million copies, and all of his 290 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920 are available today.
Culture
Caruso’s Dream draws on the Bay Area’s rich cultural, entrepreneurial, and technology innovation heritage. Several piano companies were founded in San Francisco, most notably Sherman Clay, built on the spot where a piano was buried to fill a large pot hole, and which has operated continuously for over 135 years. It maintained its own recital hall where the finest concert artists and opera stars performed. In its heyday, the piano was a symbol of culture and status, much like the computer and MP3 player are today. The piano was an interactive social and cultural tool serving as the centerpiece of musical culture.
History
Both the binding and shoring techniques draw from customs brought from the Japan and China to San Francisco by intrepid settlers, as well as reference historical gold mine construction. The metaphor of the wooden supports and rope-like tethering symbolically relate to San Franciscans’ endeavor to preserve and develop their maverick culture and city. In Caruso’s Dream, utilizing time-tested, high craft buttressing techniques under new conditions, they gather together and succeed in elevating the pianos skyward as hovering, poetic beacons.
Return to the topThe sculpture will be created from materials complementary to the building, ones that will also add light and warmth to the area.
•The pianos will be fabricated from 40- 60 year old salvaged safety plate glass. As safety is of paramount concern, we will be using the latest in glass technology with the best glass workers in the field.
•The supports will be milled out of out of salvaged douglas fir from the foundation of the recently demolished 1939 trans bay terminal, nine blocks from the sculpture, then reinforced with steel.
•The ties will be made from manilla rope wrapped aircraft cable.
Caruso’s Dream meets ADA and California Building Code requirements.
FabricationÂ
Simon Cheffins, Fabrication Director
Kara Blossom, Assistant Director
Austin Richardson
Ben Burke
Brian Fisherman Lease
Catherine Morgan
Chad Castillo
Dana Albany
Daniel Lowery
Donald Bruce
Greg Jones
Jolie Brown
Mauro ffortissimo
Matt Upmeyer
Matthew Johnston
Megan Murray
Michael McQuate
Neil Taikeff
Paul Troutman
Ryon Turk Gesink
Sara Hankin
Skip Soares
Vance Cearley
William Collister
California Metal Spray
Seaport Stainless
Structural Engineers
Andrew Scott Â
Adam Holman
Modeling/Drawing
Alan Wolf
California Model &Â Design
Dax Tran-Caffee
Joshua Sophrin
NV5
Richman Newman
Robert Geshlider
GlassÂ
Mary White
Nor-Cal Metal Fabricators
Theisen Glass
Wood Â
Paul Discoe
Lucas Ford
Daniel Krivens
Lights
Gabriel Rey-Goodlatte
Mike Hollibaugh
Permits
Jeremy Paul
Laurence Kornfield
Installation
Karl Gillick, Lead Rigger
Gary Wilson
Mark Nassar
Paul Troutman
Tom Wray
Vance Cearley
Christy Savoy
Electrical
Kent Cates
Samuel Bisbee
Radio Transmission
David Torgersen
Documentation    Â
Corey Kapellas
David Rozelle
Dean Mermell
Kelly Gallamore
Florencia Aleman
Jose Vergelin
Katia Fuentes
Michael Rauner
Nick Kasimatis
Voitek Szymkiewicz
Publicity
Norris Communications
This section is currently in progress.
This section is currently in progress.
This section is currently in progress.
This section is currently in progress.
“And my room still rocks like a boat on the sea… (Caruso’s Dream)”
by Brian Goggin with Dorka Keehn
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An Unveiling Happening in San Francisco
February 23, 2014, Evening
Mauro Fortissimo Conductor
Veronika Krausas Composer/Conductor
Performers
Zoltan Di Bartolo, Michelle Jasso, Mark Nassar, Erin Neff
Pianists
Allison Lovejoy, Martha Cooper, Ander Meyer, Benjamin Gribble, Colleen Murray, Esther Aeschbach, Gerry Bassermann, Heather Yager, Kathryn Ketman, Mauro ffortissimo, Richman Newman, Robert Soper, Steffen Gnegel
Aerialists
Alayna Stroud, Ariellah Winther, Esther Wrebel, Shannon Collier
Extra Action Marching Band
Production
Gabriel Rey-Goodlatte  Artwork Lighting Designer (under the direction of the artists)
Gerry Bassermann Sound Equipment
Jay Kravitz Stage Manager
Jennifer Holmes Event Manager
Karl Gillick Aerial Choreographer
Chris Dadzitis Projectionist
Patrick Hajduk Event Lighting Designer
Sudhu Tewari Soundboard
Special Thanks
Meg Spriggs
Stanley Chan, Joe Kirchofer, Paul Corbin, and the Avalon Bay Team
SCB Architects
Tom Sepe and Obscura Digital
Volunteers
Florencia Aleman
Project Artaud
This unveiling happening was made possible by generous support from:
The Kenneth Rainin Foundation
Black Rock Arts Foundation
