Mel Keane
Design
Biography
Mel Keane is a composer, visual artist, and designer from Dublin, currently based in Amsterdam. His work draws from the Irish pipe band tradition—embracing, interrogating, and rejecting its sonic and cultural properties. His interdisciplinary practice spans instrument making, graphic notation, choreography, and composition.
Pipe Band
Pipe Band: Using the pipe and tradition of Ireland as a point of departure, the project embraces the pipe band’s non-hierarchical structure, potential for community building, and powerful sonic properties–but rejects its notions of nationalism, triumphance, masculinity, and militance through a group performance using DIY chanter pipes, a multi-point sound system, and graphic notation.