Yuri Suzuki's Barcode Book and Other Magnificent Sound-Producing Objects. Posted by Lisa Smith | 14 Sep 2010 | Comments (1) London-based product/sound designer Yuri Suzuki's first major exhibition is currently open at the KK Outlet in London (run by our favorite advertising firm KesselsKramer), entitled Sound Interjection, and produced in partnership with Oscar Diaz.
Suzuki explores sound through designed objects, which have included hand cut and pressed records, singing tea kettles and a jellyfish theremin in the past, and, most recently the Color Chaser, a robot that produces sounds from markings on a piece of paper; Rec/Play pens, writing utensils that record and play back sound; and the Barcode Book, a graphic story that reveals information about itself through barcodes in the illustrations.
From Dazed Digital's review of the show: Suzuki's trademark is incorporating an audio experience into objects, adding sound to devices in a totally unprecedentedly interactive way to bring a joyously unexpected element to the most everyday of objects. Soundchaser by Yuri Suzuki. Product designer Yuri Suzuki presented a collection of projects investigating physical representations of sound at the Royal College of Art Show Two in London earlier this month.
Soundchaser, a collaboration with Yaroslav Tenzer of Imperial College, contains a stylus and speaker that follows a track made from laser-cut pieces of vinyl records. "Users connect the chipped pieces of records together to make new tracks," explains Suzuki. "The records are bought at jumble sales or used record shops; this record player revives forgotten, old records" Prepared turntable (below) "focuses on actively composing and playing music. " A specially made loop-groove record is printed with elements of music such as bass, drum beat and melody. The user mixes their own music from the record by controlling the five stylus arms. Here's some text from Suzuki: In 1977, Nasa launched an unmanned scientific probe: the Voyager 1.
REC & PLAY by Yuri Suzuki and Oscar Diaz. These pens by London designers Yuri Suzuki and Oscar Diaz can record sound as a line on paper and then play it back.
The REC pen (above) records sound through a microphone in its cap and records it as a line of magnetic ink, similar to the production of cassette tapes. The PLAY pen (above) has a nib that reads music by tracing along the drawn line and plays it back through a speaker. The pens run from power leads attached to a circuit board. REC & PLAY will form part of Sound Interjection, an exhibition at the KK Outlet in Hoxton Square during the London Design Festival between 18 and 26 September. Looks Like Music by Yuri Suzuki. Five little robots travel along lines drawn in felt-tip-pen and turn coloured scribbles into music in this installation by Japanese designer Yuri Suzuki (+ movie).
The Looks Like Music project by sound artist and designer Yuri Suzuki features robots that are programmed to follow a black line drawn on white paper. They each respond with specific sounds as they pass over coloured marks laid down across the track by visitors. "The public is invited to actively contribute to the development of the installation in the exhibition space by extending the circuit drawn on paper," said Suzuki. "Visitors thus participate in the creation of a large-scale artwork and enrich a collectively composed sound piece. " Called Colour Chasers, the devices are each designed with different shapes and translate the colours they encounter into sounds including drums, deep bass, chords and melody. "I am dyslexic and I cannot read musical scores," Suzuki told Dezeen.
Sounds of the Earth globe record player by Yuri Suzuki. As a needle passes over this vinyl globe by Japanese designer Yuri Suzuki, it plays folk music and national anthems from around the world (+ movie).
When the needle moves along its metal arc it plays sounds from the grooves cut into the sphere, much like a traditional vinyl record player. Suzuki has been working on The Sound of the Earth since 2009 and has now unveiled a prototype, although the design doesn't work perfectly yet – as the movie above shows, the music skips as the globe turns. "Initially this project idea came from [a desire] to store data in physical media," he told Dezeen. "I have travelled to many countries and each country has a field recording, so you can experience a 30 minute soundscape from top to end. " The sounds include pop music, national anthems, traditional folk music and spoken word recordings.
This isn't the first music player shaped like a globe to appear on Dezeen – we also featured a round CD player mounted on a tilted axis. Yuri Suzuki // Garden of Russolo sound machines. London Design Festival 2013: sound machines that transform and distort visitors' voices feature in this interactive installation by Japanese designer Yuri Suzuki (+ slideshow + movie).
The Garden of Russolo at the Victoria and Albert museum comprises voice-activated devices that Yuri Suzuki calls White Noise Machines. Each processor is housed in a wooden box on four legs and has a horn on one side that receives sounds made by visitors and emits the transformed noises. "If you speak or scream into one of the boxes, it captures your voice and translates it into various effects," Suzuki told Dezeen. Each box is fitted with a Raspberry Pi computer to process the sounds it receives and each machine is programmed to create a different effect. One machine plays sounds back in reverse, another creates musical notes and another can speed up or slow down sounds when a handle on the side is turned. Here's another film of the sound machines in the V&A's John Madejski Garden: White Noise Machine.