Let me bring to your attention the website called Train Jazz.
Here's the premise: designer Joshua Wolk assigned a jazz instrument to every active NYC subway line, then mapped them against the MTA's open real-time transit data. Every note you hear is triggered by where an actual train is along its route. Bass, piano, sax, vibes, brushes all playing together as a kind of jazz combo.
Eight hundred trains, give or take, forming a small jazz combo that has been "playing" without pause for over a hundred years.
This is a perfect example of taking something people walk right past every day (a subway map, a stream of transit data) and making it audible in a way that suddenly reveals all the hidden rhythm underneath.
Museum folks, take note. What's the "Train Jazz" version of your collection? What data stream, what pattern of visitor movement, what overlooked system in your building is just waiting to be turned into something a visitor could hear or feel or interact with in a completely new way?
Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!
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