Working in collaboration with Alana Balagot and Federico Tobon, and commissioned by Eric Ayzenberg, this piece is a set of experimental musical instruments controlled by a central interface. Click on the titles below for more information on the build and characteristics of each instrument.
We are inspired by music and technology and their intersection. We made four robotic instruments, four spirits that respond to the instructions you send them in their own way, along with four modes for interacting with them separately or together. Instruments have personalities. They have different temperaments, color, shapes, and sizes. They have different timbres, volumes, moods, and mechanics. Quirks and preferences. They will tell you when they’re played correctly and not played correctly. We spent much of our lockdown learning about them. What angle of mouthpiece and air speed makes a pipe sing the most clearly? How do you tune them? What material and what strike time is ideal for hitting a xylophone? As we crafted each instrument, their personalities came out, with their own tastes and challenges. Could we make them play themselves, wirelessly, to give them a demanding presence in the room? What ways could we make them sing together, their sum greater than their parts, either pleasantly or cacophonously?
This is the main interface and it features a keyboard, LED matrix, 5 arcade buttons, and two mode selection knobs.
This instrument features 8 wooden pipes. Airflow is provided by the small blower on the left and each pipe can be turned on and off thanks to the servo-motor actuated gates.
This instrument has 13 xylophone tines (a full octave) actuated by small solenoids from the back.
This instrument uses 4 stepper motors that hum to the specified note. When in motion the wheels generate moire patterns.
The percussion instrument is a "cajon" with two motor-actuated mallets that hit the snare and the bass sections of the box.
