One of my newest creations that I developed at my time at machinesroom is The Hummingbird. It's a twitter - controlled instrument that I recently showcased at the Tate modern as part of the Turbine Festival.
— Vulpestruments (@Vulpestruments) July 26, 2015
It consists of a series of 8 motors that play 2 strings each in a randomised sequence. The motors were from old tape players and the strings from bike brake cable.
Still looking at @Vulpestruments's Hummingbird at the Tate. Beautiful stuff! pic.twitter.com/eR1zNGYBWV
— Andrew Crossley (@AndrewCrossley_) July 25, 2015
Every time I get sent a tweet, the sequence changes! So a brand new, completely unique melody is generated.
It uses a raspberry pi for its brains which controls the on/off signals to a bank of 8 small relays.
It was incredibly loud during the festival so was very hard to hear it being played. A few videos were taken of it in action though:
This is @Vulpestruments hopefully playing my tweet at #TurbineFestival. @Tate #visualsociology pic.twitter.com/qRtDMWalfm
— Dr Zuleyka Zevallos (@OtherSociology) July 25, 2015
I owe a MASSIVE thanks to Tim Yates and Saif Bunni of Hackoustic for the invite and the help!