It's 'sombre, experimental Monday' at AIAIAI HQ. Here's a turntable modified to play the inner rings of a tree like a record.
The best ideas are very often the ones that make you go: 'Why didn't I think of that?'. Case in point is Bartholomäus Traubeck's Years Turntable, an idea that's actually so staggeringly simple that we dare say a child could have dreamt it up. However, the excecution and presentation are far from simple: using a turntable, a Playstation Eye Camera, a stepper motor and a computer running Ableton live, Traubeck has created a machine that plays slices of wood.
Years makes you rethink the relationship between the digital and the analogue and possibly even prompts you to reconsider the nature/civilization dichomtomy ever so a slightly. In the vein of artist Yuri Suzuki, who we mentioned earlier on this blog, Traubeck blurs the boundaries between the different media and makes a clever comment on our deep-seated perceptions of the world.
What's more, the music coming from the tree has a certain immediate gravity to it. When you consider the problems presently facing our planet, that's probably more than a little appropriate.
We'll be carefully monitoring this particular artist's website in anticipation of what he comes up with next. Mr. Traubeck, you just won yourself a few new fans.
UPDATE:
Kasper just alerted us to the possibility that Bartholomäus might be a Jethro Tull fan...
