Tuned Stairway
Description:
Tuned Stairs is the introductory installation for the Fabrica exhibition at Center Pompidou in October 2006. As visitors walk down the stairs leading to the exhibition, their footfalls activate a musical sound. Allowing visitors to compose their footfalls and the resulting melody. The intention is to remind visitors about the importance of the simplest actions and experiences we take for granted. This installation refocuses the attention of the visitor to their footfalls - allowing them the possibilty to compose their timing, footfalls, and of course resultiung melody.
This project is a collaboration with Hansi, Federico, Daniel and Andy
Tuned Stairs in Center Pompidou. As people step on the red section of each stair, a solenoid hammer hits the resonating bar attached to the banister next to it
On each of the stairs is a matt-switch which activates the instrument playing mechanism attached on the outside of the banister. The armature is made of aluminium with a Pull-Thust Solenoid attached to it. Above the solenoid is a tuned Resonating Bar facing down. As the Matt switch is activated, the solenoid momentarily strikes the resonating bar - resulting in a soft delicate sound resonating through the local area. The matt-switch's signal gets fed into an arduino board which then activates the solenoid mechanism through a transistor circuit. Each arduino has its own conduit board built to easily connect the swicthes to their corresponding solenoid mechanisms. We are editing a video the world to see - please check back later.
One section of the stairs in action as people walk past them.
First Prototype using multicolored cowbell and solenoid to hammer mechanism
Third Prototype using a the resonating bars we found to offer the most magical quality of sound.