Close up of circuit. Each circuit was built with six single conductor external connections for ease of installation. Power bus (red wire) is along top and left edge of perfboard, ground bus (orange wire) along bottom and right edge. The oscillator is a simple square wave oscillator using the CD40106 hex schmidt trigger (left) with a resistor-capacitor loop, which in this case includes a tuning potentiometer (center). Output from potentiometer goes to op-amp (right) with a drain to ground via the photoresisor (center top, yellow/green wires). The resultant behavior of the photoresistor passes all signal to ground (silence) when under bright light and passes signal to the amp when brightness goes below threshold. The amplified signal goes into the speaker (blue/purple wires) Because the photoresistor drains the audio signal to the ground near the oscillator CR loop’s ground, the pitch of the oscillator is affected by the light level as well; this creates a pitch bend that resembles a natural human scream, which was an unexpected but ultimately welcomed side effect. Photo by Jakey Mumfie.
Pre-assembly flowers. Photo by Jakey Mumfie.
“Tone Flowers” is a peaceful garden of interactive, electronic flowers that scream out when their light source is eclipsed. The audience is able to interact with the individual flowers by disrupting the light shining on a stamen-like sensor, which causes the flower to emit a synthesized scream from its built in electronic tone generator. Each flower is mounted on a flexible metal stem, with its electronics housed in brightly painted flower petals, and positioned underneath a lamp fixed to a central frame. This work defies the minimalist austerity often found in sound art installations with whimsical hand-made components and garden ready-mades, while drawing attention to the interplays of light and dark, silence and noise, nature and artificiality. This artwork was originally created for and exhibited in the Champlain College 2018 Creative Media Capstone Show.
Electronics and Mixed Media
Creative Media Capstone Show, April 2018
Jakey Mumfie 