Sparse

Sparse, by David Cihelna and Gene Han, was an installation of the first Day for Night in which the audience's own telephones were the instrument. The Houston Chronicle's review described it as a collective amplifier: each visitor's phone, once connected, played a separate part of a score, and the parts combined in the room into an impromptu ensemble that changed as people arrived and left. The surviving placement record describes the technical premise, phones joined to a dedicated wireless network, their screens driving colour, and a field of spatial speakers carrying the combined sound through the space.

The work is documented here through the Chronicle's review and the placement record; the archive holds no photograph of the installation.