zgodlocator

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Atelieransicht Beethovenstrasse, Cologne, 2000
Courtesy the artist

Herwig Weiser’s zgodlocator is a homemade sound generator built mostly from computer junk. The basic material is made from hardware parts that were processed into a granulate, along with a container holding a magnetic fluid, all of which can be controlled by means of electro-magnetic devices. The hardware-sand, which looks like a microscopic dune landscape, can be shaped as desired; these movements are then registered by acoustic sensors. When this input is fed into a sound program, a cold metal orgy of noise is created according to the program’s settings and the manipulation of the scrap metal that is taking place at that moment. In this way, sound is produced not only by the material upon which digital information processing is based, but also by direct intervention at the hardware level itself. Thus a sizzling omelet of sounds of the digital era is created.