David Gurman's current project, Pax Americana, will draw real-time seismic data from Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Israel, and the United States to a control room in San Francisco. Ground motion at each site generated by bombs, troop movement, and latent seismic activity will be used to robotically play a quintet of symphonic instruments - a grand piano, a viola, a cello, a bassoon, and a timpani drum. His goal is to install the display of instruments in the US Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

These countries are among many in turmoil but currently receive the preponderance of US mass media coverage and military industrial energy, therefore our perception of the U.S. domestic landscape is shaped by events in these countries. The installation will serve as a place to contemplate American cultural exchange with other nations and how that may be impacting those distant landscapes and the perception of our domestic space in complex ways. Gurman's intention is to use streaming data to draw a poetic line between conflict zones. The knowledge gained here might be kinaesthetic, spiritual, and abstract as the installation shares each countries seismic events.

Working with a collaborative team of experts in seismology, music, robotics and electromechanical engineering, Gurman will be installing the control room and the robotic quintet in the Luggage Store Gallery in the heart of downtown San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood, in the Fall of 2011.