Kinetic Speakers Nr. 37 - 44

8x Eclipse 307 Transducer, 8x Maxon A-Max26-GP 26-Encoder, 8 Slipingrings PeromaticAC6023, Custom mecanical parts
Size: Variable, on Stativ or hanged from ceilling
Year: 2008 Edition: unique

Kinetic Speakers proposes a modular interactive environment permitting the variable listening and processing of external sound-sources.
A responsive mobile speaker system generates sound through a mapping of environmental sounds and the physical distention and clustering of the speakers themselves. Eight specially designed speakers are individually controlled by highly accurate motors and position sensors allowing for precisely calibrated positioning and rotation. An evenly distributed microphone matrix isolates specific sound sources, which the detached and fully rotational speaker membranes are able to track and respond to in 2-dimensional space.

The speakers and microphones assemble a listening system which moves between modes of interacting with sonic environmental input. In the first mode, a form of passive listening in response to an over-saturated acoustical environment, the system silently gathers environmental information. Under such conditions the speaker membranes are inert and the physical movement of the mechanism is made more visually apparent.
The second, and most internally differentiated, is a mode of selective listening in which the program interprets and synthesizes, sometimes blending with the gathered material, and sometimes contrasting with the acoustic input.In the case of low external stimuli, the system passes to a reflexive mode in which it listens and reprocesses its own memory.

Upcoming exhibition in 2010 in San Francisco, Barcelona and Zürich