©2014 Slime Synthesizer

18th Entertainment Division New Face Award

Slime Synthesizer

Sound device

Dorita / Airgarage lab (KAWAUCHI Naofumi / SASAKI Yumi) [Japan]

Outline

This work is a sound synthesizer in indefinite, liquid form, offering an utterly new kind of musical experience. The sound changes when you touch the slime or when it transforms, meaning you can produce sound waves almost like you are grasping sound clouds. You are connected to the synthesizer and then joined up with the slime at a separate contact point, producing sound when you touch the slime. This is an indefinite synthesizer the likes of which has not been seen before, in the same line as other pioneering instruments like the Warbo Formant Organ (1937), Raymond Scott’s Clavivox (1952), or Robert Moog’s Moog Synthesizer (1964). And since the instrument specializes in producing and altering sound, it can also be used as a drum machine regardless of musical scale.

Reason for Award

A dissolving oscillator, a liquefying low frequency oscillator, a defrosting envelope… The parameters for this synthesizer are an indefinite liquid, slime, which when played achieves a fusion of body and technology through the viscous medium. If William S. Burroughs proposed a female android with The Soft Machine, this is a veritable liquid trautonium. Immerse yourself in protist ideas! (UKAWA Naohiro)