instrument-a-day 6: humidifier

This humidifier runs next to my bed all night in the winter.
Sometimes its groans and whirs are so interesting that they keep me
awake and I have to turn it off. It plays little cadences, drones,
and repeating beats that constantly change. Or I’m just hallucinating
in my half-asleep state.

I’ve been meaning to record it for months. It didn’t do anything
particularly exciting during these 45 seconds, but you can hear it
subtly change even in that time.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

junk electric guitar workshop – sat feb 5

It’s almost time for instrument-a-day month again, and I’m celebrating by doing a bunch of instrument-making workshops at NYC Resistor in Brooklyn. First up on Saturday February 5 (1-4pm) is Junk Electric Guitars: make a primitive–but loud!–electric guitar. Here’s video from a previous workshop:

Sign up here.

Coming up later in February:
Laser Whistles – Saturday, February 12, from 1-4 PM
Learn how to use the laser cutter by making wooden whistles, recorders, or ocarinas.
Fun with Sensors – Saturday, February 19, from 1-3 PM
Assemble vibration, light, and magnetic sensors and use them to pick up hidden sounds from the environment and to hear objects and musical instruments in a new way.
Handmade Electronic Noise – Saturday, February 26, from 1-4 PM
Make simple synthesizers and sequencers from dirt-cheap integrated circuits.

upcoming performances…

With robot toy piano and more: this Saturday October 23, sometime after 7pm at Babycastles Manhattan, 217 East 42nd (@ 3rd Av).

With flaming, melting instruments: Saturday November 6, after 6pm, at Flux Factory’s Self-Destructing Art Show – Flux Factory, 39-31 29th St in Long Island City.

(Corrected!! Self-Destructing Art Show opens Saturday 11/6, not Friday 11/5.)

(Also! duYun is taking some of my homemade instruments to Shanghai to perform at the Rockbund Art Museum, opening her collaboration with Shahzia Sikander!)