Sound artist Lirio Salvador in a coma after hit-and-run crash

Avant garde sound artist Lirio Salvador is in a coma after being hit and run by a motorcycle early Friday morning  in Cavite. According to his close friend and fellow musician Jonjie Ayson, Salvador had surgery Friday afternoon on a blood clot in his brain but has yet to regain consciousness. "The next 72 hours will be crucial to his recovery," Ayson said. Salvador, 43, was crossing the street to enter Espacio Siningdikato, the arts venue he and his arts colleagues set up in Dasmarinas, Cavite, when some friends inside heard the collision. They found Lirio lying on the street. Witnesses say three persons were on the motorcycle that hit him and sped away. An artist known to break boundaries, Salvador has been a familiar presence at gigs where experimental and electronic music is performed. He makes instruments from bicycle parts and other scrap metal which he both performs and displays. His "sculptural assemblages" have been exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum, the Drawing Room and other venues. He is most popularly known for his "Sandata" series of playable art sculptures, some of which were recently sold by Christie's auction house in Hong Kong. "Lirio Salvador’s works do not stand behind signs that impose: 'Do Not Touch the Artwork,'" according to the Drawing Room web site. "Instead, his art entices the viewer to reach across the institutional wall that divides them just to pluck at the strings." He is scheduled to fly to New York at the end of January to take up an arts residency. - HS/TJD, GMA News