Lab 1 - Tribute to Old Media

Organic

This media art piece is a tribute to the very delicate and nice sounding music box (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_box). Instead of making a nice harmonic sound and having delicate hardware, it's lumpy and makes an aggressive random sound. Just turn the wheel and find out yourself. The name is derived from the musical instrument (organ). Also, "organic" suggests something that has a nice smooth natural appearance; this toy however does not, so it's a bit sarcastic.

Its main components are Lego blocks (housing and turning mechanism), an Arduino Uno, 4 light dependent resistors and a disc made of cardboard.

You can turn around the disc by turning the Lego gears. Whenever the holes on the disc go over the LDRs, the LDRs send a signal through the Arduino to the Max/MSP software on my laptop. for each hole a different sound is played. You get the feeling that you are playing with an organ or music box, but it's rough handling, post-apocalyptic sci-fi look and weird sounds qualify it as a different sort of species.

Why did I build this? As a kid I loved to play with music boxes, in fact, I still do. Actually, who doesn't? Isn't it a joy to hold them in your hand, turn the handle and feel the small metallic strips bounce of the spikes and make very cute little tones?

All this cuteness is of course very... cute! The rebellious teenager inside of me had to give some yang to the ying, if you know what I mean.