The sound sculpture Ad lib. combines a medical machine for automatic pulmonary ventilation with 6 organ pipes that play a musical chord, a fragment of music (a reference to the “German Requiem” op.45 by Johannes Brahms) frozen to the constant rhythm of the automatic breath.
The title of the work, the abbreviation of the Latin expression “Ad libitum”, is generally used to express the freedom of a person to act according to their own judgment in a given context. In musical terminology “Ad libitum” gives discretion to the player over parameters such as how many times to repeat a number of bars in a musical score.
The action of this artificial organ raises ethical questions about the discretion and responsibility involved in this mechanical Requiem, a metaphor for a limit that men delegate to technology.