Babel 2001 is a tall sculptural installation by Brazilian artist Cildo Meireles
It is a circular tower made from hundreds of secondhand analog radios
that the artist has stacked in layers
The height of the tower can vary according to the dimensions of the room
in which it is installed
In the display at Tate Modern it is approximately eight meters tall
The radios are tuned to many different stations
They are each adjusted to the
minimum volume at which they can be heard
Even so they compete with each other
and create a cacophony of low continuous sound
resulting in inaccessible information voices or music
Older radios form the bottom of the tower
These objects date from the 1940s
They're large bulky units made up of materials such as dark wood and brown
bakelite, an early plastic
Some of them are in an art deco style and are as large
as cabinets or small pieces of furniture
Generally speaking each layer of radios
is made up of a similar or identical style
As they progress up the tower the
layers of radios become more modern
The radios become smaller, more powerful
In the upper parts of the tower we find the more modern radios made in the 1990s
These are made mainly of silver colored metal and plastic
Many of the radios have small lights as component parts
On the older sets there are illuminated valves, dials and screens
On the more modern sets there are LED on/off and
station indicators
This arrangement moving from large to small up the tower
creates an interesting effect of perspective
It exaggerates our sense of the tower's height
As the radios decrease in size the further up the tower they are located
In the display at Tate Modern the tower is installed slightly off-center
in a darkened room
It is bathed in an indigo blue light that
together with the sound gives the whole structure an eerie effect
and adds to the sense of confusion
In describing this work Meireles refers to it as
a tower of incomprehension
The artist relates it to the biblical story of the
Tower of Babel
This was a building constructed almost tall enough to reach heaven
This offended God who as a result made the builders speak in different languages
Their inability to communicate with each other
made them divided and they scattered across the earth
The Tower of Babel therefore became the source of all of mankind's conflicts
The artist has explained that the work took over ten years to complete
Babel began in 1990 on Canal Street in New York
There were 11 years of notes before I finally realised
the work in 2001 in Helsinki
Upon observing the quantity and diversity of
radios and all the different types of sound objects that were sold on Canal Street
I thought of making a work with radios
Radios are interesting because
they are physically similar and at the same time each radio is unique
The noise produced by Babel is constant
However the exact mix of voices, music
and information is always changing
No two experiences of this work are ever the same