Chestnuts Singing in a Public Park
Screw roasting chestnuts on an open fire. These roundish little nuggets of nuttiness can be so much more than a Christmastime snack. Chestnuts, it turns out, can also rock.
Or at least chime, as they did in this recent art installation in a public park in Berlin. Instead of merely falling to the ground, chestnuts dropping from a 100-year old chestnut tree landed on specialized geometrical shapes fitted with touch-sensitive stretched polymer that, when activated, would light up and make noise. The result is an ambient song and a glowing ring that the project's creators call a "Tree Concert."
The idea was executed by the ad agency BBDO Proximity as part of a campaign aimed at preserving old trees in the city by the environmental organization BUND. What better way to get the public behind trees than musical nuts?
The installation was only up for one week in September, but you can see and hear the "tree concert" here:
Image courtesy YouTube user PaperPlanefr
Nate Berg is a freelance reporter and a former staff writer for The Atlantic Cities. He lives in Los Angeles. All posts »
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