Playing the building

Artist and musician David Byrne, lead singer of the rock group Talking Heads, has transformed New York's Battery Maritime Building into a giant musical instrument. By tapping on the keys of an antique organ, visitors to the historic disused ferry terminal — open Fridays to Sundays until 10 August — can make its pipes, beams and spaces sing out harmoniously as installed devices strike, vibrate and blow through the building's structure.

http://www.davidbyrne.com

Eyeing the universe

An inspirational array of astronomy photographs graces the Albert Dock in Liverpool, UK, this month. The exhibit will tour the world as part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 celebrations after marking Liverpool's status as this year's European Capital of Culture. Pictures of planets, stars, nebulae and galaxies from observatories on Earth and in orbit, including the Hubble Space Telescope, were chosen by astronomers to convey the beauty of the Universe.

http://tinyurl.com/6meufd

Painting with perception

Credit: H. GARCIA ROSSI

French optical artists from the Group of Visual Arts Research, who explored visual effects in painting in the 1960s, are the subject of an exhibition at the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia, running until 14 September. The artists painted optical effects and illusions on canvas, such as Horacio Garcia Rossi's Electric Colour Light (above), using knowledge of how the human eye works. By focusing on physiology and physics, their aim was to produce art that anyone can experience, regardless of cultural origin, status or education.

http://www.hermitagemuseum.org