Saturday 27 December 2014

The Light fantastic, music from light bulbs

Well its another weekend.. how was your Christmas. (that's if you celebrate it...)

Hers something new... Next time you flick on the lounge light, listen closely for the soft buzz of electricity.

You might not be able to hear it but its always there.. coursing through the cables.

Most lamps are designed to be that way

a couple of italian artists makes up Quiet Ensemble, a studio that focuses on sound performance.

For their most recent piece, The Enlightenment, they've taken the soft hum of electricity and turned it into a booming orchestra of sound and light.

The orchestra is made from 96 lamps -- neon tubes, spotlights, theatre rigs and strobes -- all of which produce their own sound. The neon tubes, for example, are meant to mimic the whining sound of a violin, the strobes are percussion.

Salvo and Vercelli rigged each of the lamps with a copper coil that could deliver programmed electrical currents. You can see the choreographed voltage through flashing lights and hear it thanks to sensors which communicate the currents to a computer (through Ableton Live) and amplifies them into an ominous buzz.

The setup is effectively giving lamps a voice.

it just takes a little imagination...

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