Hacker News Reader

Comment by siavosh | Hacker News Reader

After watching the RO-BOW, I was thoroughly impressed by the inventor. But I also got two simultaneous feelings which I don't ever recall having when confronted by some technology:

1. I felt like I saw a glimpse of the future where a computer was built to express human emotion, and it was beautiful.

2. A sense of horror seeing the moving parts playing human written notes, making a mockery of the human experience.

I think it was the final tune, and the music that made the whole video so poignant. So in this sense, this machine is a piece of art.

View on HN

Have a look at a book published in 1930 by the composer Henry Cowell New Musical Resources. He is imagining a future where composers can realise music directly without performers.

Conlon Nancarrow realised part of Cowell's program by writing piano music note by note with a player roll punch. He was pushing the medium and the resulting compositions are very hard if not impossible for a human pianist to play.

Daphne Oram used a more analogue system of photocells, blank cinema film and black ink to 'draw' music directly - her system specified the amplitude, frequency and harmonic complexity of sounds through time.

RO-BOW is an art work, but it strikes me as sort of like a deliberate use of black and white film in a pin hole camera by a photographer. Quaint, interesting, thought provoking, but quite retro when you can record images in full colour with enormous resolution. This paragraph isn't quite capturing what I'm trying to say so I'll have another think...

I agree, there's nothing 'innovative' with this ingenious machine. For all it's technology it's an anachronism. But what was so unique, for me, was it illustrated the most human of things (a playable violin) with almost a steam punk factory built around it. It would be an interesting piece in a movie :)

How do you feel about a player piano?

Hah, interesting thought. I think they're less disturbing because a player piano is just a piano with moving keys. The site of this violin machine is quite different: a pretty little violin encompassed my crude machine, almost digesting it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com