Artist and Composer Charli Tapp will perform a musical piece on "The Assembly", a large-scale monolithic electro-mechanical musical instrument.
Unlike most electronic instruments, "The Assembly" produces its sound by mechanical action, hijacking the noise produced by rotating physical computer-controlled precision synchronous motors.
From the manufacturing-sector assembly lines to medical and optical equipment, synchronous motors spread far and wide in industrial applications.
Their uses are countless.
For years, M.C.S. (Motion Control Systems) have led to increasingly reliable precision in positioning applications, way outside of the scope of human operators. "P.O.A. (Prosthetics Operator Actuator)" relies on such precision to run 12 motors to perfect pitch-quantized speeds
n doing so, each motor becomes analogous to a member of a mechanical orchestra, where music directly comes from the sound produced by the labor of the machine as a byproduct of its rotation
"P.O.A. (Prosthetics Operator Actuator)" serves as a reminder that while it is tempting to focus our attention on the virtual revolution alone, the transformative impact of late-stage industrial revolution brought forth by precision-automation sends increasingly powerful shockwaves through our societies.
Ever since 2017, when he unveiled "Velocity 0" in the "Player Piano" pavilion of the 10th Saint Etienne Design Biennale in France, Charli Tapp’s work has long been toying with generative systems, preceding the current state of the AI paradigm conversation.
Unwaveringly materialization-driven, considering the physical component of the digital era has always been a cornerstone of his production. As Tapp says, "actually, AI might be the most human thing we’ve come up with so far", but Automation may be an entirely different beast.