Our shared human culture is largely formed by music. Artist Evan Holm pays homage to all of the musicians who have helped to form this culture with his functional sculpture Submerged Turntable. It is exactly what it sounds like: a turntable is submerged beneath water but still manages to play back a song that can be heard nearly perfectly above the water.

Holm’s vision comes from the idea that one day, every trace of human culture will be crushed and buried beneath the passage of years. The Submerged Turntable is symbolic of the whole of civilization slipping into the black pool of obscurity and loss.

The sculpture isn’t as bleak as that description may sound, however. Holm calls it “optimistic.” Just after the civilization is lost to the deep, dark, unknowable pool of time, a song is pulled back through the veil. This, according to the artist, is his celebration of all music and musicians, and in fact every artist who has helped to form our collective human culture.