New Interactive Installation: Soft Manipulator
In 2012 we published the installation MR-808. Over the years we used it mostly as an interactive installation where people can experiment with rhythms, robots, and sound. The audience is mostly very diverse. On music-focused events, people know how to program a groovy beat. Kids, on the other hand, tend to press "all the buttons at once" which often results in a gabber-esk cacophony. Fair enough.Over the time I felt, it would be very cool to have an installation, where people without musical knowledge can make music with objects and test out the sound side of items with their own hands, not obstructed by interfaces. Thus we created the installation "Soft Manipulator"!It's a playful interactive installation where the audience experiments with rhythms, mechanics, and objects. Everyday items like glasses, pots, as well as small musical instruments are placed on a light platform. Seven robotic mechanic devices can be manipulated interactively by the audience, manipulating the sound of the objects. The six robotic mechanics beat the objects, creating a constantly changing polyrhythmic web of sound and rhythm."Simon Moritz Geist’s new work ‘Soft Manipulator’, continues to explore the black box of electronic sound production by laying out an array of everyday objects and mini-robots, which acoustically interact with these objects, on the flat surface of a table. As in his previous well-known robot installation “MR 808 Interactive Drum Machine”, the audience can control this interaction, this time by means of easily manipulating objects and knobs which require no particular expertise to operate. Thus the installation supports an inherent desire for experimentation and sound – in a playful way with everyday objects and mechanical robots." (Jessica Buskirk, ALTANA Gallery)Date of release: 2017To be seen till February 2018 at Altana Gallery Dresden Kustodie der TU Dresden
Helmholtzstraße 9, 01069 Dresden
Open: Mo – Fr 10Am – 6Pm Uhr
Funded with support of the "Amt für Kultur und Denkmalschutz"
