Not satisfied with producing hundreds of records and working with a litany of famous names, sound artist / composer / musician Håkan Lidbo several times a year embarks on some novel experiment in sound and interactivity. In the latest, he’s worked with smart lightbulbs from Philips to transform an entire building in Stockholm into your very own personal game board.
They’re calling it the world’s biggest Master Mind game, and who are we to argue?
The idea is, windows become pixels, and you play online to try to guess the color code of your opponent, in a game of wits.
You play on off-hours in Stockholm. (I assume that’s to avoid distracting residents, because by the end of November the sun sets in Stockholm at what seems like about half one in the afternoon.) But 18-06 Stockholm time is a perfect workday distraction in the USA, conveniently.
Play online through end of November:
And learn more about the project:
http://hakanlidbo.com/archives/3740
This isn’t the only go-big-or-go-home project from Håkan even so far this year. When I was in Stockholm in May, I witnessed his oversized MIDI controller cubes, sort of the least mobile MIDI controller imaginable. Here they are at Sweden’s wonderful Volt Festival:
3 inflatable cubes, each 2 x 2 x2 meters, with built in gyro that detects the positions in 3 axes. The gyro send data to a music computer that play 6 different loops for each cube. One play drums, one play bass, one play melodies. By tilting a cube 45°, 2 or 3 loops can be crossfaded and at the same time a high pass filter makes the mixing more musical. The visual interface is projected on the wall so that the performers know which side is up (not so easy to see if you’re less tall than 2 meters).
The design of Big Cubes comes from the Yellofier app where the colors represent different sounds and the patterns different effects. The editing in the app is similar; moving and twisting the graphic elements controls the music. Big cubes takes these small graphic elements and blow them up into gigantic proportions. If you’re used to work with the Yellofier app, playing with Big Cubes makes you feel like you’re 0,5 cm tall, playing inside the phone.
More from Maestro Lidbo: