WWW-Enabled Noise Toy by Loud Objects (with funds from the Jerome Foundation) [Needs Firefox browser]:

Loud Objects, NYC-based circuit sorcerers, present a wacky way to learn hardware audio programming. The WWW-Enabled Noise Toy invites anyone with a web browser to write their own audio code, program it remotely onto a Noise Toy, and play it live via webcam. In the spirit of “try it yourself” software demos, the website provides a simple environment for experimenting with low-level microchip-generated audio. Load code from the Loud Objects’ own library of performance algorithms, hone your own noise techniques, and add your work to the online archive to share it with other microchip coders and create an open source noise community.

BIOGRAPHY

Graduates of Columbia University, Kunal Gupta, Tristan Perich and Katie Shima have been performing as Loud Objects since 2005. Their performances, focused on sound from programmed microchips, have ranged from live circuit constructions on overhead projectors and slide projectors, to soldering atop a 24-light bulb fluorescent podium, and later with modified fluorescent light guitars.

Loud Objects have performed in the USA and internationally at numerous festivals on four continents, including Sonar (Spain), Transitio_MX (Mexico), Piksel (Norway), Evolution (UK), Bent Festival and Blip Festival (NYC), Electric Eclectics (Canada), Screen Music 2 (Italy), Art and Music with the Overhead Projector (Germany), Festival of Endless Gratitude (Denmark), NIME (Brooklyn). Their varied performances range from solo acts to shifting duets with vocalists, drummers, susophonists, tuba quintets, laptop musicians, singers, painting machines, manatees, and recently as movie soundtracks.

As teachers, they have hosted workshops where attendees learn to build and program sound- generating circuits. They have explored teaching as performance, explaining their motions as they solder their circuit live, fielding questions above the noise. They have spoken and given workshops at Maker Faire (California), Handmade Music Night (Brooklyn), Le Cagibi (Canada), Museum of Science (Arkansas), Columbia University (NYC).

As artists, Loud Objects blanket walls with small speakers and microchips. Instead of pushing buttons, the audience is encouraged to rewire the actual circuit with soldering irons, hanging as part of the installation. These installations have been in shows including Art and the Overhead (Sweden), Piksel (Norway) and Art and Music with the Overhead Projector (Denmark).