front: the scale (left) and the touchscreen interface (right)
detail: loudspeaker as scale weight
the touchscreen interface
easily we talk about a „heavy“ work of music or a light one, without being able to precisely say,
how much more weight the meistersinger vorspiel might have over a detroit techno track, if at all.
the apparatus for determining the relative weight of music aims to offer a solution to this very problem,
using a state-of-the-art aesthetic evaluation algorithm (undisclosed), listening to the tracks in realtime
and not always producing the same output from the same input data.
a scale constructed from an aluminum rod and two loudspeakers dangling on each end.
the rod is attached to a servomotor and the construction fixed on a microphone stand.
nearby a computer with a touchscreen interface, connected to the servomotor and the loudspeakers.
from the touchscreen the visitor can choose two different pieces of music from two playlists and commence playback by pressing the "start" button. this starts playback of the selected tracks thru the two loudspeakers on the aluminum rod.
meanwhile an aesthetic evaluation algorithm listens to the selected tracks and, via arduino,
sends commands to the servomotor to move the scale indicating the result of its evaluation.
once the shorter of the selected pieces ends, playback and evaluation stop and the scale returns to level position.
