You might think that glitchy dial-up modems and clunky printers are a thing of the past and that their rightful place is rotting away in a landfill somewhere. However the thing is that modern, quieter technology just doesn't cut the mustard when it comes to assembling electronic device orchestras which recreate classic songs such as 'The Times They Are A-Changing' by Bob Dylan. This is exactly what production company Partizan has just done for the new range of Brother printers, you can, and should, watch the commerical here... - it is quite remarkable.
The Scrapheap Symphony, as it is known, is a full-scale orchestra made from 97 old, battered, reengineered printers, scanners, copiers, fax machines, hard drives, modems and huge dot matrix printers. Each machine was re-wired to make a MIDI orchestra which was programmed by the company Is This Good?
Director Chris Cairns, "Hacking so many devices robustly in such a short period of time was a challenge but you can sleep when you're dead, which is particularly relevant if you die of sleep-deprivation. What did we learn? Don't hot glue microswitches onto stuff unless you love really horrible noises."
