Creative Juxtaposition: Nick Cave AND Nick Cave

Today's post is about two masterfully creative people, each named Nick Cave (pictured above.)

Nick Cave is an artist who is known for using sound in his work, most notably in his multifaceted pieces called "Soundsuits."

Nick Cave is a musician who brings an artistic sensibility to his deeply strange and personal musical compositions.

Here is a YouTube video of Nick Cave speaking about the artistic choices he made while creating a particular Soundsuit, now on display at The Smithsonian.  Nick Cave's work rewards careful observation.





Here is a YouTube video of one of Nick Cave's songs called "Girl in Amber." (You can read more about the background of the song on another Nick Cave website called "The Red Hand Files.")





After exploring each Nick Cave's work, I'm struck by some commonalities:

• The work of each Nick Cave is informed by their own personal experiences, shared in ways that resonate and connect them to their viewers/listeners.

• Nick Cave's work pays strict attention to seemingly small details, that really do add up to create a greater whole.

• Each artist creates a visual and sonic environment that defies easy categorization.  In fact, each Nick Cave is his own category.


And wouldn't we all like to bring these elements into our own creative work?



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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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Museum/Exhibit/Design Inspiration: Music Animation Machine

Composer, musician, and software engineer Stephen Malinowski invented a cool way of visualizing music called the "Music Animation Machine."

Basically, Malinowski creates visualizations of music using a system of colored shapes, taking information from a MIDI file.  You can see a still frame of one of his Music Animation Machine videos above, representing a section of Bach's Double Violin Concerto in D Minor.

What I like most about the Music Animation Machine presentations is that they help viewers/listeners appreciate what may be very familiar pieces of classical music in very new and different ways.

For me, a non-musician, listening and viewing really helps me appreciate the structure of a composition and the interplay of different instruments even more forcefully than simply listening alone.

Malinowski's work certainly makes me think of the possibilities for museum exhibitions, but also helps me consider how to engage multiple senses of visitors in my work.

Click over to YouTube to experience a whole series of Music Animation Machine videos. (I've also embedded a nice example below.)





Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

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!

If you enjoy the blog, please help support ExhibiTricks through our PayPal "Tip Jar"

Creative Inspiration: Chrome Music Lab

Chrome Music Lab is a nifty collection of interactive "experiments" that lets users explore the fundamental elements of music like rhythm, chords, and harmonics.

Google has assembled these collaborations between musicians and coders into one place for anyone with a Web browser to try out.   And best of all,  the Music Lab examples were built with the freely available Web Audio API, so anyone with the time, and some technical know-how, can put together similar interactive explorations into sound and music.

Even as a non-musician, I really enjoyed playing and experimenting with all the Music Lab modules, but two of my favorites were "Voice Spinner" (pictured at the top of this post) and "Rhythm" (pictured below.)

In Voice Spinner, you use your computer's microphone to capture your voice and create "sonic circles"  that can then be played backwards or forwards at different speeds.  Not only is it super fun, but the Voice Spinner interface really lends itself to repeated experimentation.  (I had fun trying to recreate the backward-tracking sections of old Beatles songs!)

The "Rhythm" module lets you choose among sets of different cartoony animal musical combos. Each set of animals plays different percussion instruments that you can then control by clicking or un-clicking dots (like musical notes) onto a set of parallel lines.  Once you set everything into motion the animals play different rhythms in time to the dots you placed.   It's a deceptively simple interface that let's you set up really complex rhythmic patterns!  It's also really fun to use to collaborate with someone else.

So bravo to Google for turning Chrome Music Lab loose into the world!  It's worth clicking over to the website to play with all 12 current modules --- each one of which can easily serve as creative inspiration for museum/exhibit/design folks!



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Looking for fun and innovative ways to integrate technology into your museum? Contact POW! today to discuss how we can turn your good ideas into great exhibits!


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Time + Culture + Tech = Radiooooo.com

Here's a quick one, as I ponder my learnings from the recent NEMA Conference and before I write a post recapping that event,

Radiooooo.com is a website now in beta that aims to present crowd-sourced music based on geographical location and decade.

As you can see by the photo at the top of the post, or by clicking over to the website, you can end up in some interesting combinations of sonic times and places!

But don't take my word for it, head over to Radiooooo.com and give it a listen!



Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email (or Facebook or LinkedIn) you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like videos!)