Robert Cervera, “Ye_soft_pipes/play_on”. Installation view at Tangent Projects, Barcelona, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.
Robert Cervera, “Ye_soft_pipes/play_on”. Installation view at Tangent Projects, Barcelona, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.
Robert Cervera, “Ye_soft_pipes/play_on”. Installation view at Tangent Projects, Barcelona, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.
Robert Cervera, “Ye_soft_pipes/play_on”. Installation view at Tangent Projects, Barcelona, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.
Robert Cervera. Work-in-progress images for the show “Ye_soft_pipes/play_on” at Tangent Projects, Barcelona, 2020. Concrete, PETG tubes, video stills. Courtesy of the artist.
Robert Cervera. Work-in-progress images for the show “Ye_soft_pipes/play_on” at Tangent Projects, Barcelona, 2020. Concrete, PETG tubes, video stills. Courtesy of the artist.
Robert Cervera. Work-in-progress images for the show “Ye_soft_pipes/play_on” at Tangent Projects, Barcelona, 2020. Concrete, PETG tubes, video stills. Courtesy of the artist.
Robert Cervera. Work-in-progress images for the show “Ye_soft_pipes/play_on” at Tangent Projects, Barcelona, 2020. Concrete, PETG tubes, video stills. Courtesy of the artist.
Robert Cervera. Work-in-progress images for the show “Ye_soft_pipes/play_on” at Tangent Projects, Barcelona, 2020. Concrete, PETG tubes, video stills. Courtesy of the artist.
The poet loops around a Greek urn, querying it. “What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape / Of deities or mortals, or of both?”
He sees the hero in the dark of a bedroom, face lit blue by PC tower LEDs. “What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? / What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?”
Upgrade to liquid cooling. Run the code silently to eternity. “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard / Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on.”
– Verses taken from John Keats’s poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1819)
Robert Cervera was Tangent Projects’ first Cotangent Invited Artist in Residence (August 2019) and the work in this exhibition started life here.
The sculptural Gaming Horns dotted around the space are made out of liquid cooling tubes normally used in extreme gaming PCs. By blowing into them as if they were a wind instrument, Cervera produces musical notes which he then records and codes into sound compositions. A selection of his compositions are presented here intertwined with gameplay videos in an immersive display.
