Electromechanical Solenoid Orchestra
A kinetic instrument performing generative music based on real-time weather and environmental data.
Co-creator, Electronic Hardware Lead, Software Lead
ROLE
Solenoid actuators, Websockets, Javascript, C++, maxMSP
TECH
Benjamin Bacon
TEAM
PRESS
The Electromechanical Solenoid Orchestra (ESO) is a decentralized mechanical musical instrument driven by real-time environmental data pulled from a network of sensors in Asia, the US, and EU.
The data was then interpreted into 12-step generative music performed by the solenoid actuators in each module.
ESO was exhibited at the International Triennial of New Media Art at the National Art Museum in Beijing, China, July and August 2011.
I designed a custom PCB to drive the 96 12-volt solenoids with Darlington arrays. All enclosure and mounting design was done by Benjamin Bacon. I developed openFrameworks and MaxMSP patches to pull raw sensor data from 8 partners hosting sensor nodes globally and publishing to Xively (formerly Pachube), and trigger the solenoids algorithmically.
