Chromaticaster
Optic-music instrument
Description
Artist: Nourathar Studio
Authors: Caen Botto & Marta Rupérez
Title: Chromaticaster
Date: 2019
Medium: Interactive, optical illusion. Mixed media; LCD screen, computer, Arduino, sound system, wood, lens, perspex, keyboard.
Custom application developed in Max/MSP/Jitter by Caen Botto
Dimensions: · Display: 42,5 (h) x 54,5 (w) x 25 (d) cm
· Keyboard: 3,5 (h) x 47 (w) x 12 (d)
· Speakers: 30,5 (h) x 12 (w) x 12 (d)
Edition: unique within a series of 5
Concept
A new interpretation of light organs which explore different levels of synesthetic correspondences.
The notes on the keyboard are associated with colours and objects that appear in the viewer. These three-dimensional shapes generate the illusion of proceeding from an infinitely distant sound source, they act as a visual representation of the movement of sound through space.
Chromaticaster transforms a classic TV and a keyboard, into an interactive controller of musical & optical illusion.
Historical Light Organs, include Mary Hallock Greenewalt’s Sarabet, where the correspondence between colour & sound depended on the interpreter, or Thomas Wilfred’s Lumia, which presented silent light compositions in motion.