Cat Rocketship

This beautiful building stopped me dead when it popped up in my RSS feed. 

The photo is from a Lost at E Minor article. It’s an old firehouse in Detroit which the community is reclaiming by turning it into a fucking flaming organ. 

On July 22, the artists group 2:1 will be staging alive, filmed performanceat one of Detroit’s beautiful and historic de-commissioned fire houses. This performance will feature the Detroit Children’s Choir under the direction of Carol Schoch, members of the Street Poets Society under the direction of Peace Project founder, Al Taylor, the Detroit Fire Department’s Honor Guard, some of Detroit’s finest composers and musicians, and a “pyrophone” instrument that spans the façade of the building.

Through the repurposing of a historicFire House, Engine Company #4 will become the location for staging a live event where by contemporary artists and composers will engage with Detroit’s inner city youth in a truly collaborative way. Artists group 2:1 received submissions from the Street Poets Society on broad themes: their perceptions of Detroit, their individual aspirations, and their hopes for the future of the city in which they live. These writings have been transposed into lyrical content for modern compositions, which will be performed by the Detroit Children’s Choir.

In addition to this collaboration 2:1 will be transforming the façade of this historic structure into a resonant musical instrument. This “pyrophone” is similar to a pipe organ that uses a single, small, precisely controlled flame, that when projected into glass tubes produces a beautiful, sustained tone. The temperature difference between the flame and the glass tube causes the air to oscillate, which is perceived as sound.

Amaze.