Header: Maryn Devine
Award-winning Montreal-based art and design studio Daily tous les jours’ has created a slow communication device for the iconic atrium of the National Gallery, located in Canada’s capital. Spaghetti Chorus, the name of the project, transforms voice messages into music and light, intermingling along a winding, luminous thread.
How it works
Two microphones are connected by 140 continuous metres of intertwined, glowing LED tubes, suspended from the vaulted ceiling of the Scotiabank Great Hall. Visitors speak into one of the microphones and watch their voices slowly transform into music and light, traveling in shafts of colour, while creating singular melodic moments.
Spaghetti Chorus is a new edition of Daily tous les jours’ Hello series, which emphasises the music and harmonics of human speech through poetic messaging systems. Created for a world so often confined to the size of a screen, this series creates musical bridges between people in real life, offering an invitation to connect in person, beyond words.
“We’re very proud to offer this dazzling interactive experience adapted to our iconic Scotiabank Great Hall,” said Jean-François Bélisle, Director and CEO, National Gallery of Canada. “Daily tous les jours is a Canadian studio with an international reputation. Homegrown creativity has its perfect setting with the Gallery. We invite people and families to come together and share magical moments in words, music, colour, and light.”
“There is so much technology trying to connect us these days, yet we have never felt so lonely. Someone on the other side of the street might as well be on the other side of the world,” adds Mouna Andraos, Daily tous les jours cofounder. “We move around stuck in our heads, on our phones, socialising with images of people. Can technology help create moments for strangers to connect in the flesh? Moments strange enough for strangers to feel a sense of connection to each other?”
“There is something innate, even physical, about music that transcends age, culture, and language,” emphasises Melissa Mongiat, Daily tous les jours cofounder. “When music becomes a collective experience—whether you’re there as a spectator or part of the performance—a kind of magic happens. Individuals become present with each other, grounded for a moment in time and place alongside a group of strangers.”
