Sound visionaries
As a freshman in 1998, Chris Kucinski saw classmate Owen Osborn around campus with his hand-made electric banjos and wondered, “Who is this guy?” Soon they were playing music together and creating more instruments.
Critter and Guitari
Kucinski studied art, Osborn physics and music. They turned their fascination with sound, technology, materials, and design into Critter & Guitari, their Brooklyn business designing and marketing portable synthesizers and other instruments that encourage musical exploration. Also interested “in how the world of sounds can translate into the visual world,” Osborn says, they often wire their instruments to video monitors that portray sound in colorful abstract animations.
Critter & Guitari sound art at Skidmore
That’s what they’ve installed in the Tang Museum’s elevator: fun high-tech gadgets that museum-goers are invited to use for making and recording sounds, playing them back and altering them, and seeing how they look in video.
Elevator Music 30: Critter & Guitari runs through June 5 at the Tang.
