Ian makes his home on the west side of Chicago where, for nearly 25 years, he has owned and operated the very successful Specimen Products, specializing in building superior quality custom electric guitars, basses, violins, and mandolins, as well as creating the audio horn speakers featured in the upcoming Sonic Arboretum. Specimen Products has been featured in numerous publications, including Rolling Stone, Home Entertainment, New York Press, Nuvo, and Cool Hunting. Ian's horn speakers have been featured in performances on the Late Show with David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O'Brien.
To learn more about Ian and Specimen Products, visit www.specimenproducts.com. Ian's horns in a live performance with Andrew Bird can be viewed at www.specimenproducts.com/david_letterman.html .
From the Guggenheim Museum press release, "For Dark Sounds, Bird will collaborate with sculptor, inventor, and luthier Ian Schneller of Specimen Products to present Andrew Bird & Ian Schneller’s Sonic Arboretum, an audiovisual landscape featuring audio sculptures scattered around the rotunda floor that project sound skyward. Schneller has been designing and building his own line of custom guitars, tube amplifiers, and audio horn speakers for more than 25 years. With a master’s degree in sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, his creations are sonic, kinetic, structural investigations that blend modern and vintage aesthetics and technology. Alone, the sculptures vaguely resemble a union of Victrola speakers and plant life, while Sonic Arboretum’s cumulative effect evokes a symphonic field of poppies, a prairie of sound, a forest floor of hornlings––all parts of one “ecosystem.”
From the Artist, "When I was attending MCA (then the Academy), 1980-84, I discovered two special secret rooms. The projection booth and a room to the left of the auditorium stage. With reluctant permission from the powers that were, these were transformed into sound laboratories. Our band, the Odd Jobs, started here. We also experimented with projections and audio visual presentations from the projection booth. We beefed out the PA for true early sound surround experiences. Truly, the willingness of the faculty to allow us all to experiment with off the beaten path media, in conjunction with our regular assignments, was empowering. These early experiments proved to be a foundation for my current work and continue to remind me how important exploration is in rudimentary design curriculum. I cherish my memories from that first year. It was much like bootcamp, and somewhat grueling, but also immensely rewarding. Here, a foundation was laid. I found out so much about myself and established a lifelong work ethic during this brief time. The rudiments of 2D and 3D design, color theory and life drawing have been absolutely indispensable in ways I could never have imagined at the time. You could say that the Sonic Arboretum started in Memphis at the Academy (now College) in that little secret room off the stage with a handful of electron tubes and speakers, informed by Conte crayon, newsprint paper, and not quite enough sleep."
