User:Yoana Buzova/thematic proj

street composition recipe / creating music from the lit windows of buildings

to make a street composition you will need:

• a street, where the composition will happen
• a photo camera
• a tripod /optional but recommended/
• a pen or pencil if you like
• cardboard strip /width __ cm, length depending on the composition/
• a small single-hole perforator
• a music box

'recording' the street

choose a street you are curious to hear. Go there in a time when people have turned on the lights in their homes. You could take any time from early evening till late at night. Choose a time you are attracted to. Start at the begging of the street, choose a side, mount the camera on a tripod and frame the building across you. Move 2 meters further and take another shot. Do this until you have taken pictures of the buildings along the whole street. Do the same for the opposite side of the street. Stitch the photos together.

making the punch card prepare a cardboard piece __ cm wide . Create a grid of squares of 3 mm with __ mm distance between them. You should have 10 squares in a row. Print or laser the grid onto the cardboard.

note: if you have buildings taller than 10 floors you need to double the squares in a row (make them 20), so they will have …mm distance.

creating the music

Look at the street panorama you have created. Notice which windows are lit and which dark. You will now punch holes on the card you have made only where there is light in the window. Consider the rows of squares the floors of the houses. The lower floors are the lower tones. Note: You don't have to use the whole range of the card. The taller the buildings, the mote tones there will be.

Once you have punched all the lit windows you have taken, you are ready to listen to the melody in the music box.

For maximum enjoyment, record the music and bring it back to where you took it from.

p.s. i will enter the exact measurements later...