The project is situated between two thoroughfares of London culture: Rotten Row, formerly known as the King's Private road, and South Carriage Drive. These two paths were historically an aristocratic course for horseback sightseeing, and a decadent promenade for the bourgeoisie. Today they are a meandering passage through the park and a bustling thoroughfare of commerce. I analyzed these paths in terms of rhythm, taking into account their literal frequencies – like speed and density – measured on site, as well as the theoretical implications of what rhythm might mean in ideological terms. The project attempts to divert flows of traffic on these two pathways, weave them together to produce certain rhythmic effects, and ultimately generate a socially polyrhythmic composition in which I unfold a program of music: produced; performed; broadcast.
The proposal is a plaza of sound. It features two stages, one with terraced seating for traditional amphitheater performances of theater or orchestral music, and one with open pit space for pop music where patron stand or dance. the third performance space it captured by a carefully calibrated hyperbolic paraboloid. This form, like that of a building sized bull horn, projects sound along the street corridor of S. Carriage Dr. and Knightsbridge Street, and across the southern edge of Hyde Park drawing passers by into the passage ways of the plaza and immersing them in its festivities.