Overview
When Toto unleashed their single 'Africa' upon the world back in 1982, the drums echoed. Given the song's enduring success, it seems that everyone heard them. Now one particular patch of the Namib desert will hear the percussive reverberation for eternity, with a new art and sound installation playing the track on a never-ending loop.
Toto Forever isn't just something screamed by die-hard fans of the American band. It's not merely the thinking behind one-night events that play the beloved tune over and over, such as an annual party in Brisbane. It's now the title of Max Siedentopf's new project, which the artist has set up as a "tribute to probably the most popular song of the last four decades".
As seen on Siedentopf's site for the artwork, Toto Forever consists of seven plinths, arranged in a circle with one sat in the middle. Speakers sit atop the six boxes on the outside, with an MP3 player on the seventh. There's only one song loaded onto the device, so that's all that it can play. And if you're wondering about power, it's all attached to solar batteries.
While Siedentopf has revealed the installation's general location — in the desert that stretches for 2000 kilometres along the Namib coastline — he's keeping the exact spot to himself.
Whether he succeeds in gifting future generation some old forgotten words and ancient melodies will likely depend on the weather and environment, given that, as sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti, electronic equipment isn't designed to be left in a sandy expanse until the end of time — whether or not they're blessed by the rains.
Image: Toto Forever by Max Siedentopf.