Disarm: Turning Once Harmful Weapons into an Orchestra of Musical Instruments

In a noble effort to transform harmful weapons into works of art, Pedro Reyes creates musical instruments from dismantled guns. His latest exhibition, Disarm, is a mechanized orchestra of once deadly instruments.

The project is a collaboration between Reyes, several other musicians, and Cocolab, a new media studio based in Mexico City. The group was able to acquire a host of rifles, guns, shotguns, and other weaponry the Mexican Army had seized from drug cartels, and then the group put the weapons to a more artistic and enlightening use. The musical performance put on by the instruments is controlled by software that can be pre-programmed to play your favorite tune!

In an interview with the Creators Project, Reyes said,

It is easy to be seduced by weapons… I believe that the purpose of art is to come up with ways to transform the most negative instincts into creative instincts.

You can find more photos of Disarm below and at the Lisson Gallery in London where the show debuted earlier this year. The Disarm tour will also be stopping at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh starting on October 5, 2013. On October 1 the artist will be giving a talk about the exhibition, and you just might find me there, too!

Disarm Mexico City (2013)

via Via Colossal
 
How do you write about Disarm , though, without including the hit from The Smashing Pumpkins? You don’t.

 
Now if we could just find ways to disarm the rest of the weapons in the world and make them into art…