Song Cabinet
Song Cabinet is an interactive music piece that users activate by exploring the contents of a set of drawers. Each drawer contains small, digitally-controlled, mechanical instruments that play varying patterns depending on how far out it is pulled. By opening and closing drawers, users mix the song, muting and unmuting the various parts.
Song Cabinet
2010
Mixed Media, Sound and Electronics
Song Cabinet is an interactive music piece that users activate by exploring the contents of a set of drawers. Each drawer contains small digitally controlled mechanical instruments that play varying patterns depending on how far out it is pulled. By opening and closing drawers, users mix the song, muting and unmuting the various parts and selecting different musical patterns. The objects contained in each drawer, culled from the artist’s personal collection, are associated with particular places, indicated by the drawers’ labels. In exploring the collection, users coax these static objects into a rhythmic dialog with each other and create an intermingling of their associated memories.
This version of the piece is a study for a room-sized version with many more drawers, sound making devices and and combinations of musical parts.