“Years” is an artwork created by Bartholomäus Traubeck that translates wood’s year rings into sound. The record player uses a system that analyse tree’s years for their strength, thickness and rate of growth.
This data are mapped to a scale defined by the overall appearance of the wood and serves as basis for a generative process that outputs piano music. The system is composed by arduino, ps eye, stepper motor for moving the tonearm, vvvv and ableton live, all connected via midiyoke and/or serial.
A record player that plays slices of wood. Year ring data is translated into music, 2011.
Modified turntable, computer, vvvv, camera, acrylic glass, veneer, approx. 90x50x50 cm
A tree’s year rings are analysed for their strength, thickness and rate of growth. This data serves as basis for a generative process that outputs piano music. It is mapped to a scale which is again defined by the overall appearance of the wood (ranging from dark to light and from strong texture to light texture). The foundation for the music is certainly found in the defined ruleset of programming and hardware setup, but the data acquired from every tree interprets this ruleset very differently.
Thanks to Land Salzburg, Schmiede, Pro-ject Audio, Rohol Furniere, Karla Spiluttini, Ivo Francx, Christoph Freidhöfer, vvvv.
For more detail: “Years”: Playing wood’s year rings
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