Chandelier Harp (2012) Time Lapse

The Chandelier Harp is an interactive instrument played by passing your body through low-voltage lasers that beam from the sculpture to the ground. Much like plucking the string of a harp, passing through a laser triggers custom circuitry and sensors to produce musical tones.

Lewin started building Laser Harps in the 1990s. Bringing together highly mathematical principles of music theory, she selected tones based on a pentatonic scale, which sounds as if it shifts fluidly between major and minor tonalities. Multiple layers of sound allow for both range and depth depending on the speed with which you move beneath each sensor. Utilizing retro synthesizers from the late 1980s and early 1990s, she achieves an ethereal sound that connects your motions to your auditory, tactile, and visual senses. Just as people can trigger sensors on the Chandelier Harp, the sculpture simultaneously activates the human senses—initiating a flow of energy between the artworks and the participants.

The Chandelier Harp is part of Lewin’s HAWT (Have Art Will Travel) program, which seeks to create dynamic, participatory, public art experiences worldwide. Lewin’s traveling works provide an unprecedented level of interactivity and can transform the way we interact with art and each other.

- The Chandelier Harp has been exhibited:
o 2019: World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland
o 2019: Converge, New York
o 2019: Detroit Symphony Orchestra
o 2016: Top of the Town, Denver, CO
o 2016: Cherry Creek Arts Festival, Denver, CO
o 2015: Astana, Kazakhstan
o 2015: CherryArts Festival, Denver, CO
o 2015: Communikey, Boulder, CO
o 2014: Luminosity, Lexington
o 2013: Artsfest, Conway
o 2012: Its Electric, Jen Lewin Retrospective, Boulder CO