wikiGong is Jacob Dickinson, Dave Ayer, and Rebecca Ayer. They are dedicated to cataloging the sounds of large public structures for creative purposes such as assembling virtual instruments. wikiGong’s guiding metaphor is the Indonesian gamelan ensemble.
Requiem is wikiGong’s paean to Long Beach’s Gerald Desmond Bridge. “Functionally obsolete” for years already, shedding parts spasmodically into the Back Channel beneath it, the bridge today bars large container ships from entering Long Beach harbor and thus endangers future international commerce. Scheduled for demolition in 2016, it will soon fall silent beside its replacement span. Requiem is a composition using field recordings and recent photographs in an attempt to preserve some of the bridge’s character. Even civil engineering monuments are ephemera in the end.