Beat Boxxx And Speak To Me/Breathe

[vimeo=4038918]
[Steve] is in the MFA Design and Technology program at parsons, and as part of his studies, has built a couple really interesting projects. First, the Beat boxxx, as seen in the video above, is an 80’s retro looking portable beat looper. You create and loop your beats at the time of playing using simple hand gestures. The look is great, for those who enjoy cardboard and magic marker, though we think some tonal variation and possibly a wider pitch variation would really make this fun.

His second project is Speak to Me/Breathe. This project was meant to be a commentary on security in our daily information. He is visually displaying the braille symbols to spell out his emails. If any person were to spend the effort, they could decipher his emails. The finish on this project is quite nice, you can see a video of the display after the break.


[vimeo=3616219]

13 thoughts on “Beat Boxxx And Speak To Me/Breathe

  1. I thought the same, if you are braille is for blind people who wouldn’t be able to see it. However then I thought there are a couple of uses for it..

    1 people who have poor sight who would be able to see this large display.
    2 for sighted people learning braille.

    Other than that I think it is just a geek gadget.

  2. About the braille, it was meant to be a commentary on security. I would assume (could be wrong of course) that he was trying to make the point that information is broadcast, and that it is only a matter of effort to decipher such information. In this case, if someone were to translate the braille. Sending out poorly encrypted information is basically the same thing.

  3. Yes! ehlmcight has the idea…

    I originally wanted to investigate a way of expressing a binary language through light, showing the passage of time by representing speech (hence the name Speak to Me/Breathe…obviously and intentionally influenced by Floyd’s DSOTM/Dark Side of the Rainbow). After I began to work on it however the overall concept began to take shape and the main goal of it now is a commentary on the security of the internet as a whole. IMO no data is safe that is on a network, its only harder to get at depending on the level of security.

    @darren It could also be a geek gadget as well, currently while I’m developing it I have it just installed in my living room and its a cool way to see if I have any email :)

  4. legally blind people might somehow be able to vaguely notice flashes of light possibly?

    I clicked this because I thought someone was beat-boxing the pink floyd song…

  5. at jimslipper:
    and yet you felt it worthy enough to comment on it, what does that say about you? I have seen better, I have seen worse. please share with the rest of the class, what have you done?

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