These artists create electronic music using fruit as instruments

Natura Morta 04
Quiet Ensemble

Turns out you can create instruments with pretty much anything — even fruit.

Advertisement

The Austrian artists Bernardo Vercelli and Fabio Di Salvo produce electronic beats using pineapples, bananas, and pears in their recent project, "Natura Morta" (or "Still Life"). The duo make up the Quiet Ensemble, and focus on sound performance in their work.

"We like the idea of a fruit being an organic element. And with this inner energy, it is able to create sound," Di Salvo tells Tech Insider.

Advertisement

The Quiet Ensemble is currently performing "Natura Morta" in art spaces throughout Austria, Italy, Brazil, and France. For local performances, they gather their fruits from a grocer right outside their studio in Vienna.

486292_369011199850794_228336667_n
Quiet Ensemble

They stab the fruits with metal prongs that send electric currents through the fruit and amplify different sounds through the connected speakers. Every fruit has a specific rhythm, so the composition sounds different every time, Vercelli says.

189171_369009936517587_760328318_n
Quiet Ensemble
Advertisement

Half of their performances are actually improvised. They let the natural sounds from the fruits dictate the rest. "We like to have partial control of the chaos," Vercelli says.

391753_369010163184231_1060248357_n
Quiet Ensemble

Each fruit sits on plexiglass that glows when it's played.

Natura_morta06
Quiet Ensemble
Advertisement

The result is a continuous drone of beats, with lights strobing in the background. "The performance starts with these pure sounds, then we decide rhythm and distortion until we arrive to a more complex composition," Di Salvo says.

395135_369010583184189_749476283_n
Quiet Ensemble
Advertisement

They call themselves the "Quiet Ensemble," because they seek to highlight the music around us in everyday life. "We want to represent the invisible concerts hidden around us, the little marvelous things happening constantly that we don't usually notice," Vercelli says.

Natura Morta from Quiet ensemble on Vimeo.

 

Music Art Design
Advertisement
Close icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.