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DORIS BITTAR: My name is Doris Bittar, I'm here at the Hyde Gallery at Grossmont College.
I'm part of a group exhibit called Into Abstraction. I was invited to show my piece, Tarab Soundings
4, this is the fourth time I've done it and it changes every time I do it.
Tarab Soundings is an interactive installation piece involving a dulcimoon, a new 87-stringed
instrument designed by Bittar. It's played by moving a gliding panel with a plectra that
plucks the strings of three hexagons, each tuned to a different culture: Aztec, Chinese
and Arab.
LARRY KLINE: The purpose is really to create a space where we can discuss things of cultural
relevance and importance, also a way to engage students, there are a number of art students
here in different disciplines and this is an opportunity for them to sort of see what's
going on in the field and educate them about what they might want to do.
DORIS BITTAR:... So right now I am doing something a little different in that I am putting the
pattern way above and way below, it's kind of spilling out onto the floor. It's something
I haven't done when it was shown at the California Center for the Arts, and this was in Berlin
last summer and in Stutgard in the fall.... The inside of the sliding decorative panel,
which is a pattern from Damascus but it's also been seen in India and China and Japan,
anyway there's a plecktra here so we are going to try it now to see if it can strike the
instrument, it might miss it...
DORIS BITTAR [as she installs panel]: Got it... just missing.
DORIS BITTAR: It's a piece that combines or mashes up the dominant cultures of our country
here in Southern California. The Aztec-Mexican cultures, the Asian or Chinese, and the Arabic
or Indo-European cultures, and it's a music and pattern making piece.
LARRY KLINE: I think one of the interesting connections between Doris' work and the others
is that abstract painting tends to look inwardly. The difference between Doris' which is really
interesting to me is that it's actually kind of outward process, especially the fact that
she's using music, something that's very universal.
DORIS BITTAR: The other part of this is the sliding panel, which not only plays the instrument
but also creates patterns when it is moved just a little bit and the two patterns overlap,
you get different patterns. Just the littlest movements makes it look like cubist, Bauhaus,
lace... and it's interactive so people can play with it and reference various cultures
that are represented in California.