Wired is the monthy lifestyle magazine with a focus on..."Ideas, Technology, Design, Business". interesting that February's issue seemed to be awash with fascinating and curious music related items, so here they are....
1. Tasteful Music.
Researchers at Oxford University have shown some really interesting links between the taste of food and the influence of sound and music. Sure enough sound is explicitly linked to some foods, so crisps come in a crunchy sounding packet, not at all necessary but a simple illustration of that relationship. Researchers found that there are "synaesthetic correspondences" between taste and sound through a range of experiments. So give people some toffee to munch in a darkened room while listening to different music in the background. When the music at a higher pitch, the toffee tasted sweeter.....[p.26]
2. Dancing Robots
Robots while able to replicate lots of human moves, just can't dance. Dancing takes agility and speed which is pretty challenging for a robot to perform naturally. Not any more, there's a dancing robot on the cards. Testing it's environment 100 times per second and considering it's own momentum, inertia and friction, to balance better and move more quickly and smoothly....[p.36]
3. 3D Vinyl
How about a vinyl record that rather than being a disc is in fact a sphere. So this has been created by an enthusiastic traveller, a globe of vinyl that represents earth and plays the music associated with the location of the stylus on that world. The next project is a vinyl record that would play for 24 hours, and would need to be 3m wide.... [p.69]
4. DJ Lounge Booth
So a bespoke DJ booth which would be at home in the lounge, even playing lounge music. About £750 buys a solid wood DJ booth based on the designs of legendary early disco clubs like Studio 54 and Paradise Garage. So maybe that's full circle, some homage also to those original front room wooden gramophone and radio cabinets of previous generations....[p.54]
5. Sound to Light
How about turning an audio track into a picture.... At songle.jp a music track can be rendered into various styles of animated infographic. [p.78]
Given hearing is one of a limited number of senses (the actual number is not fully agreed) it's perhaps not surprising that these sorts of curiosities and innovations enable us to better understand end enjoy the audible world around us.
