June 2016 34
Karmetik – Classic Indian instruments
Karmetik is ramified group of artists, musicians and technicians developing instruments, sound and multimedia installations with a focus on classic Indian instruments (and their robotized counterparts). Their elaborate website contains many detailed info about the different instruments and projects (the have a tabla bot!) Link
Gamelatron – Gamelan robots
A robotic version of the thousand-year-old Indonesian Gamelan Instrument by Aaron Taylor Kuffner. 170 solenoids, controlled via Ableton Live, funded by LEMUR Link
Captured! by Robots
Michael Petermann – Blödes Orchester
German artists Michael Petermanns collected a hugh range electric houshol equipment to form his “stupid orchester”. In our understanding it plays with the 50s and 60s gender role allocation where the wemen where supposed to have stand in the kitchen, playing their “houshold orchestra”.
The orchestra is made from of over 200 pieces of electric houshold equipment, synchronized and played as a fixes 10-20 minute length piece.
Lemur – Orchestrion for Pat Metheny
The Brooklyn-based “League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots” is one of the most distinguished group of robots instrument artists. Founded in 2000 by Eric Singer they have since then developed a great varity of instruments and sound installations. LEMUR development the “Orchestrion” robots used since 2009 by Pat Metheny Lemur: Link
The Orchestrion Project was filmed at the former St Elias Church in Greenpoint, Brooklyn in November 2010. It features Pat Metheny on guitar performing with the Orchestrion, a vast collection of mechanical instruments that surround Pat Metheny in this atmospheric setting. The focus of the performance is the Orchestrion Suite, a work written specifically for this combination and debuted on Pat Metheny’s Orchestrion album
Lemur – Guitarbot
The Brooklyn-based “League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots” is one of the most distinguished group of robots instrument artists. Founded in 2000 by Eric Singer they have since then developed a great varity of instruments and sound installations, such as the famous “guitarbot”.
Jazari – African drum robots
Patrick Flanagan aka Jazari provides an robotic beat setup including several african style beat-bots (Snare, Kick, Djembe) and “an acoustic wobble bot, [and] vocal processing with an Android app [..]”. Patrick has also developed his own Wii-based hand controller which allows him to play his tunes live. Uses Max/MSP, Arduino, TLC5940 link
Expressive Machines
The Group “Expressive Machines” from the University of Virginia creates music robots with a stress on the technical layout. Robots include two percussive ones (snare, general beater) and a monochord string robot. Made with Arduino, MIDI, Solenoids, acrylic glass. Link
Björk – Biophilia
For the album “Biophilia” Björk made a concept involving several custom made Instruments like a huge automatic pendulum harp, a gameleste, and a huge tesla coil sound that we have seen else where. The Instruments were build be a team led by Andy Cavatorta Interview
[BD594] – Music with old printers, harddrives
User [BD594] is famous for releasing his “Old School Computer Remixes”. The remixes commonly feature a printer re-using the noises made by the step motors, some solenoid driven instruments and one or more oscilloscopes to visualize the sound of the stepper motors.
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