Elevator Music 42 at The Tang Opens Nov. 20

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The Tang Teaching Museum’s Elevator Music series activates the Museum’s central elevator within the Antoine Predock-designed building, and engages artists across the visual and performing arts to create immersive, sound-based installations. 

The 42nd edition features sound and sculptural work by artist Laura Splan, on view from Nov. 20 through April 10, 2022.

Splan’s installation re-envisions the Tang’s elevator as an organism’s cell and its visitors as proteins. The sound work Chaperone and the interactive sculpture Lumen offer a sonic and tactile journey through Integral Molecular, a Philadelphia-based biotech lab where Splan spent several months in spring 2018 as artist-in-residence. In Chaperone, the buzzing of specialized laboratory equipment, chatter of scientists, and countless other unidentifiable, fragmented sounds coalesce and disperse, their arrangement following the structure of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.

Laura Splan is a transdisciplinary artist working at the intersections of science, technology, and culture. Her research-driven, conceptually based art practice connects hidden artifacts of biotechnology to everyday lives through embodied interactions and sensory engagement using a wide range of media, including experimental materials, digital media, and craft processes. 

Admission to the Tang is free. The Museum is open to the public on Thursdays from noon to 9 pm and Fridays through Sundays from noon to 5 pm. The Museum will be closed Nov. 25-26 for the Thanksgiving Holiday. All visitors must show proof of vaccination and wear masks. For more information, call the Visitors Services Desk at 518-580-8080 or visit tang.skidmore.edu.