White Man’s Magic” is a sound sculpture by Torbjørn Skårild and Martin Smidt. The artwork is part of the decoration at St. Olavs Hospital in Trondheim, and is located by the abutment of Cecilie Bridge, outside the Emergency Department and the Gastro Centre. The title of the work alludes to the Western world’s exaggerated faith in technology—as a modern form of magic. It also evokes associations with a hospital environment, with staff dressed in white.

Description taken from the book “Visuelle vitaminer” by Ragnhild Aslaksen and Grethe Britt Fredriksen:

“White Man’s Magic is a hybrid expression developed through collaboration between visual artist Torbjørn Skårild and composer Martin Smidt. A combination of sculpture, fountain, and musical instrument. It is the water that plays the instrument; you see what you hear, and hear what you see. The sources of inspiration are both low-tech—traditional folk instruments, old oil drums, rattles—and high-tech—satellites, steel, digital technology: White Man’s Magic. Perhaps it suggests how melodic medicine works: a combination of magic, technology, and fertile overflow.”

The sculpture is made of stainless steel and features two specially designed large-scale steel pans with tone fields tuned to the bass register. The tone fields are struck by water jets from ten precision valves.

The installation was opened in 2005. Originally, it played a short musical sequence approximately once an hour from morning until evening. The scheduled playtimes became popular destinations for visitors, and after many requests from the public to activate it more frequently, the schedule was increased to several performances per hour.

Following a later reaction in 2018, when two patients told Adresseavisen that they were disturbed by the sculpture, its light and sound operation was turned off for several years.

However, in 2025–2026, technical maintenance work is underway to reopen the sculpture.