Whispering Bench
Current Installation, Pratt Institute Sculpture Park
Cathey’s recent research in environmental structures is The Whispering Bench© installed at the Pratt Institute Sculpture Park. This is a unique edition of a classic World’s Fair Park Bench, which is pervasive in all NYC Parks. It has been transformed and retrofitted and incorporates poetic text and a sonic composition from field recordings of extinct songbirds, both of which appear and disappear in relation to a human’s presence on the bench. The overhead canopy extension is composed of recycled wood and metal while acoustic components are solar-driven.
The conspicuous height suggests a sense of destination, and the inclusion overhead of a brief line of poetic text simultaneously absent and present against the sky by way of lenticular film, intends to ignite an amplified experience of the place as visitors pause and pass through. Once seated, the design calls for a pressure sensor which signals a sonic component, wrapping the viewer in subtle field recordings that offer a fresh perceptual and sensory lens, filtering a select presence of bird species that gradually succumb to a beat: that of the human heartbeat at rest.
Study of project for Pratt Sculpture Park; 6 foot World's Fair NYC park bench with overhead canopy extension of recycled wood, metal, and solar-driven acoustic components of extinct regional songbirds. 2010, (study, 24" X 12" graphite, pastel, on digital print).