October 6, 2012 editorial: comments

Dear Fellow Audiofanziners!

On a lighter note today I’d like to bring your attention to an interesting installation (musical art exhibition) called Playa consisting of 14 acoustic guitars scattered on a show floor.  The guitars are ‘played’ by a computer which spins fabric covered motors which flutter over the strings creating vibrations.  The motors themselves are suspended from the ceiling by cables and the entire symphony of sorts is connected via an Arduino processor.  Watch Playa here.  Neeto, ha?

The result is not a song, but soothing atmosphere music , reminiscent of sea waves.  You are not really supposed to think you are on the beach by any means.  So what is the purpose?  The creator, Ruben Dhers writes:  “I want the viewer to reach a contemplative state and some way to slightly lose the perception of time”.  But if you ask me, like often with these musical installations, especially techie, semi-complicated ones such as Playa, is to simply see if you can do it.  And that’s a good enough reason I suppose.

Chater-La