The latest artwork created by Matthew Goodheart, an assistant professor of music composition in the Department of Arts in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has opened at Harvestworks on Governor’s Island in New York City.

Using Goodheart’s “reembodied sound” technique of activating musical instruments through surface transducers, the installation, remnants, combines the sonority of broken string instruments with environmental sound to convey a meditative experience on fragmentation, decay, and transformation.

Part of an ongoing series of compositional installations and performance works, remnants is designed to be experienced by one person at a time.

Each participant wears bone-conducting headphones that rest on the listener’s cheekbones rather than inside the eardrum to send vibrations through the bone to the inner ear that the brain registers as sound. While moving through a field of broken instruments scattered across the floor, sound from the instruments mixes with the sound from the headphones to create an ephemeral and ever-changing sonic environment. A responsive work, movements in the space affect the soundscape in subtle and unrecognizable ways, creating a unique experience for each participant.

A not-for-profit founded in 1977, Harvestworks’ mission is to support the creation and presentation of art works achieved through the use of new and evolving technologies.

Part of an exhibition titled “Workings of Media Art,” remnants opened on August 28 and runs through October 31.