Every Possible Utterance

Graduate and undergraduate students collaborate on an evening-length performance integrating art, technology, and engineering considering the efficacy of place, chance, and liminality. Students from Carnegie Mellon University’s Integrative Design, Arts, and Technology (IDeATe) network will exhibit site-specific music, art, installation, and performance Friday, December 13 from 8:00 – 10:00 p.m. at the MuseumLab. Formally known as the Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny, the MuseumLab, now an annex to Children’s Museum Pittsburgh, provides a grand architectural canvas to be transformed into an inter-dimensional portal that connects the site’s past to 2019, bathing audiences in immersive sight and sound happenings.

This explorable art and musical experience interacts with the unique historical, structural, and design elements of MuseumLab. Every Possible Utterance, is based upon Jorge Louis Borges’ short story “The Library of Babel” which presents a universe in the form of a finite library where the order and content of the books are random and apparently meaningless. In spite of this, the library contains every coherent book ever written. Borges asks us to search for the possibility of meaning in randomness and the power of infinity.

The first half of the experience is about exploration and interaction, with sculptures, roving musicians, and performers. While the second half will present live and visual art in concert with musical compositions and animation. The audience will experience sights and sounds created by musicians, artists, designers, and performers from across the CMU community.

Faculty mentors for this project include: Jesse Stiles, Assistant Teaching Professor of Sound Media and Music; Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh, Assistant Teaching Professor in Music Theory; Johannes DeYoung, Assistant Professor of Art; Robert Zacharias, Special Faculty in IDeATe; and Heidi Wiren Bartlett, Designer & Adjunct Professor.

This performance is made possible by generous support from the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and IDeATe at Carnegie Mellon University along with partners at the MuseumLab.

This event is free and open to the public.