{"id":350937,"date":"2025-12-17T11:04:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T11:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/350937\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T11:04:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T11:04:15","slug":"devon-turnbull-transforms-cooper-hewitt-gallery-into-handcrafted-listening-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/350937\/","title":{"rendered":"devon turnbull transforms cooper hewitt gallery into handcrafted listening room"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>New York\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.designboom.com\/tag\/cooper-hewitt\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cooper Hewitt<\/a> exhibits the experimental <a href=\"https:\/\/www.designboom.com\/tag\/sound-art\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sound art<\/a> of designer Devon Turnbull with its newly opened installation, HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3. The show sees a gallery within the museum\u2019s historic Carnegie Library transformed into a dedicated space for deep listening. On view through July 19th, 2026, Turnbull\u2019s large-scale, handmade audio system signals the museum\u2019s broader engagement with sound through Art of Noise, an exhibition organized by SFMOMA.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Turnbull, known under the name OJAS, approaches audio engineering as a design practice grounded in craft and long-term experimentation. His systems appear as monolithic objects that express their weight and invite attention even in silence. Here, sound fills the gallery evenly, and encourage stillness and sustained focus among visitors.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The installation arrives alongside a growing cultural interest in attentive listening, a subject about which Turnbull wrote in the foreword to Jazz Kissa: The Soul of Japanese Listening Culture, published by ERG Media. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.designboom.com\/design\/spaces-listening-japan-jazz-kissa-book-photographer-katsumasa-kusunose-10-03-2025\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The book<\/a>, by photographer Katsumasa Kusunose, documents Japan\u2019s jazz caf\u00e9s, spaces devoted to focused, communal listening.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1170141 size-full lazyload\" bad-src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" alt=\"devon turnbull cooper hewitt\" width=\"818\" height=\"613\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/devon-turnbull-cooper-hewitt-hifi-pursuit-listening-room-dream-no-3-designboom-01.jpg\"  data- loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>Devon Turnbull, HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2025; courtesy Devon Turnbull\/Lisson Gallery; photo: <a href=\"https:\/\/markwaldhauser.com\/Homepage\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Mark Waldhauser<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>header<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Within <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cooperhewitt.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Cooper Hewitt<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/ojas.nyc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">artist<\/a> Devon Turnbull tailors the listening room to the architectural character of Andrew Carnegie\u2019s former library. Turnbull developed custom speaker sculptures that respond directly to the existing millwork and rhythm of the space, creating a close relationship between historic interior details and contemporary fabrication. The scale of this iteration exceeds earlier versions, allowing sound to circulate with a controlled sense of depth and presence.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Seating by <a href=\"https:\/\/us.usm.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">USM Modular Furniture<\/a> and textiles by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kvadrat.dk\/en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Kvadrat<\/a> complete the environment, offering comfort while maintaining visual restraint. Materials remain legible and direct, allowing the audio system to lead the experience. The room operates as a functional interior rather than a display stage, with every element tuned toward sustained listening and shared attention.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1170142 size-full lazyload\" bad-src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" alt=\"devon turnbull cooper hewitt\" width=\"818\" height=\"613\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/devon-turnbull-cooper-hewitt-hifi-pursuit-listening-room-dream-no-3-designboom-02.jpg\"  data- loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>Devon Turnbull, HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2025; courtesy Devon Turnbull\/Lisson Gallery; photo: Mark Waldhauser<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>header<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The exhibition forms part of a lineage of listening rooms developed by Devon Turnbull since 2022, following presentations in New York, London, and San Francisco. At Cooper Hewitt, the installation becomes the most architecturally and acoustically integrated version to date, shaped for daily use through an active program of music sessions. Live guest operators, including Turnbull alongside musicians, archivists, and collectors, guide listening experiences several days each week.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Outside of these sessions, rotating playlists selected by Turnbull structure the room\u2019s rhythm across the week, moving through classical, ambient, jazz, and mixed genres depending on the day. Music functions here as both content and medium and revealing how sound interacts with space, furniture, and collective presence. Through HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3, Cooper Hewitt frames listening as a design act.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1170143 size-full lazyload\" bad-src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" alt=\"devon turnbull cooper hewitt\" width=\"818\" height=\"613\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/devon-turnbull-cooper-hewitt-hifi-pursuit-listening-room-dream-no-3-designboom-03.jpg\"  data- loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>Devon Turnbull, HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2025; courtesy Devon Turnbull\/Lisson Gallery; photo: Mark Waldhauser<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1170144 size-full lazyload\" bad-src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" alt=\"devon turnbull cooper hewitt\" width=\"818\" height=\"613\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/devon-turnbull-cooper-hewitt-hifi-pursuit-listening-room-dream-no-3-designboom-04.jpg\"  data- loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>Devon Turnbull, HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2025; courtesy Devon Turnbull\/Lisson Gallery; photo: Mark Waldhauser<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1170145 size-full lazyload\" bad-src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" alt=\"devon turnbull cooper hewitt\" width=\"818\" height=\"613\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/devon-turnbull-cooper-hewitt-hifi-pursuit-listening-room-dream-no-3-designboom-05.jpg\"  data- loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>Devon Turnbull, HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 2025; courtesy Devon Turnbull\/Lisson Gallery; photo: Mark Waldhauser<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HiFi Pursuit Listening Room Dream No. 3 \u00a0 New York\u2019s Cooper Hewitt exhibits the experimental sound art of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":350938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,152485,356,75,77103],"class_list":{"0":"post-350937","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-cooper-hewitt","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-sound-art"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}