Kraft test drummie & Robert Plant from NormanBates on Vimeo.
Sorry, keys and switches and buttons: it’s all about sponges now.
Using metal sponges, a houseplant (Swedish Ivy, to be specific), and a circuit-bent toy, Cristian Martínez and companion perform whimsically-wonderful music. And, of course, it’s dubbed Kraft Test Dummy and Robert Plant.
Cristian, aka Norman Bates, a sonic artist and musician based in Argentina, explains to CDM:
It’s a circuit bend that originally was some portable-radio type toy with 4 buttons, with drum sounds. I changed the button contacts to metal sponges and car antennas, all tied together with wonderful crocodiles clips. Playing along with it is a 555 oscillator, executed by Isis Abigail, using herself and a Plectranthus Australis plant as variable resistor. Rock on!
Rock on, indeed. Ready for some more handmade goodness from this artist? You can find more on Vimeo; here are my favorites:
First up, an oscillator circuit set against a series of videos becomes beautifully contemplative:
Mirador from NormanBates on Vimeo.
a super simple oscillator -from nicholas collins book [Ed.: That’s the superb Handmade Electronic Music] – a 4093 [oscillator] chip with 2 ldrs, reading some videos of my likes collection. The first two from Guido Corallo, and the last one by Moritz Uebele. The three videos were originally silent. Sorry about the really poor quality, got to compress too much the original video to be able to got it under the 500mb restriction for the non plus like me.
un oscilador recontra simple del libro de Nic Collins, un 4093 con dos ldrs, pegado al monitor, “leyendo” algunos videos de mi colección de favoritos. Los dos primeros de Guido Corallo, y el tercero de Moritz Uebele. Los 3 videos eran originalmente mudos. La calidad deja bastante que desear, pero es que tuve que comprimirlo demasiado para que me quede en los 500 mb de límite para los no plus.
Frascus is a simple but beautiful electro-acoustic instrument rig – and benefits from some added effects, it seems.
Frascus from NormanBates on Vimeo.
Beautiful stuff. I hope to see more.