An interactive sound instrument linking the voices of a 30-person chorus with 48 black cat whiskers. Through touch, visitors to the piece activate the sound of massed voices singing, creating spontaneous, infinitely-variable musical compositions.
Whisker Organ was created in collaboration with the Oriana Consort (Walter Chapin, Conductor) who performed the notes for the instrument's database in March 2011. We worked together to create an instrument that would be the only vessel capable of playing the music he composed, music that was structured by his authorial choice, but eventually endlessly variable based on users' playing.
Whisker Organ is built on a system of highly sensitive piezoelectric sensors connected to a series of microprocessors, which in turn control sound output to an external speaker system.
