The Books's "Spoonbox"

The music group The Books (Paul de Jong and Nick Zammuto) have created a nice bit of kinetic sculpture (see above). I particularly like that that it uses sound vibrations, not motors or servos, to move the spoons. Very elegant.

Here is how The Books describe it:

I built this prototype of the Spoonbox out of wood, plexiglass, zinc plates, measuring spoons, and closeout radioshack parts. It hooks up to a CD player and small amplifier which cause the spoons to dance. There are small speakers behind the spoons that move in response to the sounds on the CD which I carefully composed using low frequency sine waves and kitchen sounds. The speakers, in turn, blow small puffs of air into the spoons which cause them to bounce/vibrate in rhythmic patterns. It really must be seen to be understood, but this video might give you some sense of what it does.

[via BoingBoing]


Another work in this vein is David Moreno's Stereomo (2004), which I saw at the Greater New York show in 2005 at PS1. Stereomo consisted of two speaker components mounted on flexible steel rods. The speakers emit inaudible, low frequency sounds that cause them to sway along with other, pulsing sounds that play of the metronomic motion.