40 Part Part

40 Part Part is a participatory sound installation that transforms familiar audio into a kaleidoscopic and immersive sonic experience. The artwork takes the form of forty speakers arranged in a large circle and pointed inward. The installation is silent until a library visitor connects via Bluetooth or plugs the provided cables into their electronic device. When that happens, Clayton’s system begins playing the visitor’s audio—albeit reorganized by a complex algorithm that shifts, mutates, and spatializes the incoming sounds.

Jace Clayton, 40 Part Part, 2022 debuted at the Cleveland Public Library’s Brett Hall, for FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, on view from July-October 2022. It was commissiond by FRONT and the New York Philharmonic.