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Pleasure Garden 2007 Eleven-channel sound installation La Noche en Blanco, Edificio Zurich, Madrid, Spain   Text by Maggie Clinton Staged within the private garden of the Jardines Edificio Zurich, the multi-channel sound installation Pleasure Garden transplants pre-recorded sounds from an old amusement park of Coney Island, New York into the serene setting of an insurance building in Madrid, Spain. Since its early development into a resort after the American Civil War, Coney Island's reputation as a "people's paradise" for pleasure and excitement, has uniquely appealed to visitors of all ages, classes and ethnic backgrounds. As the sounds extracted from the amusement park in Coney Island are grafted into the physical landscape of the Jardines Edificio Zurich, a private space for quiet introspection is sonically transformed into a public space for shared entertainment. This acoustic juxtaposition invites us to contemplate the spatial construction of recreation - whether calming or stimulating, private or public - while also pointing out the parallels between the "pleasure garden" of Europe's past and the amusement parks of today. Very special thanks to Astroland Amusement Park, Jamie Allen, JL Aronson, Chris Mann, Ramon Mateos and Marco Scoffier. *Press: El Pais, Logopress, El Mundo, La Razon, lepetitjournal.com