Artist and self-described “maker of objects” [Daric Gill] is sharing some of the world’s most pleasing and acoustically interesting soundscapes with museum patrons in his latest work, ‘The Memory Machine: Sound‘.
Now featured at the Center of Science and Industry museum, the interactive stereo soundscape generator resembles three decorated ‘tree trunks’, suspended high above the exhibition floor. When visitors approach the artwork, they are treated to a randomly selected soundscape sample.
The build, which is described in blog form here, teases just some of the sixty soundscape samples that can be heard. These include the noisy chattering of crowds underneath the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the mellow melodies of a meadow high in the Swiss Alps, and the pumping atmosphere of a baseball match played in Yankee Stadium, New York City.
Only the middle trunk reveals the electronic soul of the installation – an Adafruit M4 Feather Express, Music Maker Featherwing and a motion sensor. The flanking trunks house the speakers and amplifier. The motion sensor triggers the microcontroller, which then plays a randomly selected sample from an SD card.
[Daric] went to great lengths to reuse discarded materials, and even cannibalized parts from other sculptures to see his vision through. This focus underpins a substantial amount of woodworking and machining that went into this build, so the full video is certainly worth a watch to see the whole project come together.
Make sure to check out our coverage of other funky installations, like this mesmerizing ceiling decoration.
Thank you so much for featuring my work and for all the love in this article. I really appreciate it.
As a tiny detail from this whole video.. did you see the duct tape coated hammer? Ah-ha moment -I’m going to go use that idea right now!
So it´s just an MP3 player playing randomly a track ? with lots of wood working as “case” ?
Hi there. Yes, in essence, it’s a motion sensing MP3 player with woodworking as a case. And those tracks are sounds that I recorded from remarkable places so that people become interested in the world around them. Like what it sounds like to stand behind a giant clock in a castle tower, or by a famous work of art in a world-class museum, or drips of water in an underground crypt, or behind a waterfall, or on top of mountains in the Swiss Alps. We often take for granted certain sounds around us and that the world might sound different in other places than our own. To my friends in Europe, a Yankees game is just as interesting to them as what The Colosseum sounds like in Rome to my friends in the US. I’d love to see what you’re working on. Feel free to share, I encourage checking out other’s projects and promoting positive conversations.