MoMA Museum of Modern Art

Brazilian artist Carlito Carvalhosa (b. 1961) conceived Sum of Days as an environmental and participatory sound installation—a monumental, voluminous construction made of soft, white, translucent material that hangs from the ceiling to the floor and takes the shape of an elliptical labyrinth. This structure hides, or interrupts, the defined limits of its surrounding architectural space, allowing an experience of total immersion while suspending the usual parameters of spatial reference known to the beholders. A system of microphones hanging from various heights records the ambient noise, which is played back the next day through several speakers. Each day a new recording is superimposed over the one from the previous day, and the original recording is progressively obscured by a layer of whispers and newly recorded sonic vibrations. Adding another layer of sound will be the music of American composer Philip Glass. The accumulation of these recordings will constitute an immaterial layering of time as a memory of an experience, or a sculptural auditory experience, in which all the sounds that are produced are constantly layered. Carvalhosa’s Sum of Days is therefore a sculptural work, using sound as a mnemonic material—a sculpture of music that is constantly being erased by the accidental noise of every day experiences. This marks the artist’s first exhibition in the United States.