no more monkeys jumping on the bed.

This was an interactive art project that was included as part of the Berkeley Art Festival in August 2002. The installation was described as a child powered musical instrument. It consisted of a bed (custom built) which passing children by were invited to jump up and down on. This caused the bed to play nursery rhymes in a "round" structure. The more activity, the faster and more complex the music became. There was a lot of jumping. There was a lot of music. There were a lot of satisfied customers.

image

Here are some pictures (click them for large versions).

video

Click on the image below for a video clip.

sound

The intention was to create a continuously varying sonic environment that reflected the amount of jumping (the bed was mapped by 8 pressure pads areas). I wanted to produce a sound that was pleasing yet had interest value - an intersection between the naive and the experimental.

There were up to 8 different voices that could be playing simultaneously. Each "jump" could start another voice if there were less than 8 playing. When a voice was added it was usually added in at the next entry point in the round as a "rhythmical" voice. However there was a chance that it was added in immediately (ie off beat)and, if so, a chance that it would be de tuned. These "wild card" voices were generally at a somewhat lower volume than the main "rhythmical" voices. However there was a randomly determined volume within the range of the "wild card" voices and the "rhythmical" voices. "Wild" voices were set to loop once. Rhythm voices looped a randomly determined number of times (between 1 and 3). When a voice had finished playing it stopped and waited to be triggered by the next jump.

The amount of activity (jumping) was continuously checked and if it changed to be within a new threshold level, a new tempo was established and any new voices were started according to this new tempo (the voices playing at the old tempo continued until they finished). There were 8 different tempos that were available that correctonded to 8 differenrt levels of jumping activity.

Here are some snippets of music. Click on the bars to start the samples and bring up the controls. You may want to play them simultaneously. You can stop and start them and adjust the volumes with the controls.