Ember is an interactive installation, which explores community through a campfire-like circle of wooden seats that generate music from a visitor’s presence. Each seat in the circle is an instrument, which adds a note to a melody. This melody is a composition formed from the presence of visitors. In this way Ember establishes a conversation of social contact, time, and nature.

Ember places visitors in the ‘familiar’ arrangement of a campfire in which one is never alone but surrounded by the notes of previous visitors. It is a community of the past present and future. Ember is a window into the song of the city, provoking interaction between visitors and a space of reflection on the daily movements of urban life.

As a visitor approaches the piece they see a round deck made out of narrow slats of wood and a circle of what appears to be logs. On closer inspection the visitor can see that the logs are finely formed and gracefully rounded wooden seats. As the visitor sits on a seat, it emanates a bright glow beneath it and a soft marimba-like melody plays. Each seat weaves the song and storyline of the presence of all previous visitors.

Each note is unique to someone who occupied this log in the past. The notes are created based on how long a visitor has been with the piece, when the visitor leaves, a note will be added to the melody, only to be heard by future visitors. While two or more visitors occupy logs, the historic melodies combine creating a richer, more intricate song. This is a gathering around a campfire, a melodic observation of entanglement of presence, now, and past.

Ember provides recollection amidst a place of transition. Public places often seem distant and impersonal, used only as a causeway, a place of temporary inhabitance. Ember provides the contrast of an ever updating historic melody.