A Symphony of Ordinary Things (2025)

Created for a 2nd year design assessment. We were tasked with designing an interactive exhibit or installation suitable for public display, and then creating an interactive audio prototype for that installation using the program Pure Data. Inspired by a Pat Schneider poem and the works of John Cage, I came up with an installation to explored the idea that “music surrounds us”, and encourage users to review the way they perceive sounds that are often ignored or blocked out as background noise. Laid out as an ordinary domestic kitchen, certain items in the kitchen would produce sounds when touched - a sample of that item’s sound, combined with a musical note. In total there were twelve pairs of sounds and notes, one for each note of the twelve-tone chromatic scale, which I recorded on my violin. When triggered together in different combinations, the objects would produce chords, accompanied by the percussive effects of the objects’ real world sounds.