September 19, 2012
Hacked Human Orchestra
In the summer of 2012, MzTEK and Guerilla Science made sweet music together, creating wearable instruments with festival-goers at Wilderness and Shambala.
With conductive fabric and soft circuitry, punters turned their t-shirts into synthesizers, screechers and recorders, and were then treated to a personalized recording session with composer Florian Tanant.
For more on the making of this event, check out the how-to guides on the MzTEK website, watch this short film by Debbie Davies about the first workshop we held in June 2012, read about the experience of Shauna Concannon (a literary studies grad turned electrical engineer) here, and see more pics of the making of the orchestra at the Centre for Creative Collaboration (our home) here, at Wilderness here, and at Shambala here.
Many thanks to Kobakant for their advice and expertise, Shauna Concannon for her engineering prowess, Louise Carver with the Natures tent at Wilderness for hosting the event, and to the Centre for Creative Collaboration for bringing us all together in the first place.
This event was generously sponsored by the Royal Academy of Engineering.
September 4, 2012
“The Victorious Kingdom Of Electricity”
Engineer Shauna Concannon helped us build a Hacked Human Orchestra this summer, in a collaboration with tech artist collective MzTEK and composer Florian Tanant. She tells us about her adventures adding to “the victorious kingdom of electricity”.
The tent is aired out and packed away, and while a few reluctant specks of glitter still cling to my face, the human hacked orchestra festival tour has come to an end.
As a relative newcomer to the field of electronics, it takes little effort to recall the basement, utterly lacking in natural light, where I had my first foray into circuit hacking; inexpertly, and with a dose of trepidation, I handled tiny components with numbers written so small that a squint became a necessary (and becoming) accompaniment to hunched shoulders and a furrowed brow.
While trying to learn the basics at an accelerated rate I was simultaneously wiring up voltage boxes with unnervingly high currents to hacked-around-with circuitry and an arduino in the perpetual fear I might blow something up. Oh, the hours spent alone late at night connecting wires, hoping for the best and troubleshooting to work out which component was the wrong way round or a dud; praise be to my only friend, the multimeter (that I was semi-confident I knew how to use).
So, how refreshing instead to be sat in an airy tent, with merry festival go-ers, threading needles, stripping wire and combining chit-chat with the crafting of wearable musical instruments.
Within the space of a few hours individuals with limited or no previous experience created functioning sound circuits and discovered how capacitors, transistors and resistors could transform into hubs of sound creation. Throw in some coloured felt and keen design skills and the hacked human orchestra is born.
Off they marched to the pop-up studio to fulfill the musical aspirations outlined by the futurists, to add “the victorious kingdom of Electricity” to the musical poem. Well, perhaps that is a little grandiose, but they certainly made some noises of note…
Compared to the dank workshop setting, this seems like a vastly preferable environment within which to get a taste for electronics. Alas, working in fields all year round is not an option. I now await the recordings – perhaps they can help to prolong the Shambala and Wilderness experience.
By Shauna Concannon
Read more about the Hacked Human Orchestra on MzTEK’s blog, check out this short film by Debbie Davies about our first workshop, see more pictures from Wilderness here and Shambala here, and check out the HHO at the Barbican in November!
August 15, 2012
Wilderness: Hacked Human Orchestra
We’ve been collaborating with art and technology collective MzTEK to explore the wonderful world of wearable electronics.
Sophie McDonald, founder of MzTEK, clad in a wearable piano, pointing to a t-shirt cum sampler.
On 12 August in the Natures tent at the new and shiny Wilderness festival, we ran a workshop where people got the chance to build and attach electronic musical instruments to their clothes.
After hacking t-shirts with soft circuits, miniature speakers and conductive thread, workshop participants were treated to a personalized recording session with composer Florian Tenant.
We’ll be hosting this event again at Shambala on August 25th – come let us transform your threads into a musical instrument!
This event was sponsored by the Royal Academy of Engineering.
July 3, 2012
Hacked Human Orchestra Workshop
MzTEK is a nonprofit collective with the aim of encouraging women artists to pick up technical skills in the fields of new media, computer arts, and technology. Guerilla Science is a nonprofit purveyor of science entertainment for arts oriented crowds. Match made in heaven? We’d like to think so.
Together we hosted a workshop for women to come and learn how to create a musical instrument, inspired by the designs of Kobakant, in partnership with PhD Media Arts and Technology Engineer Shauna Concannon.
The wonderful Debbie Davies documented the day for us, producing a short film – have a look, see.
In the second act, later this summer at Wilderness and Shambala we will hack these instruments into outfits, stitching synths into shirts, turning trousers into trumpets and redesigning dresses into drums. For the final act, we will assemble en masse for an impromptu orchestral performance unlike any other, led by composer Florian Lunaire who will score our singular soundtrack as we wind our way throughout the festival.
This event is generously sponsored by the Royal Academy of Engineering.
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