Record Player Modified to Play Cross Sections of Trees

Bartholomäus Traubeck, was born in Munich, Germany in 1987 and is currently living and studying in Rotterdam, Netherlands and Linz, Austria. For his project entitled “Years”, he took a record player and modified it to analyze the various properties of the rings of trees. He sliced tree trunks into cross sections, and shaped them into records. The player then transcribes the data into an algorithm that outputs as piano music. It’s really melodic and very beautiful.

A tree’s year rings are analysed for their strength, thickness and rate of growth. This data serves as basis for a generative process that outputs piano music. It is mapped to a scale which is again defined by the overall appearance of the wood (ranging from dark to light and from strong texture to light texture). The foundation for the music is certainly found in the defined ruleset of programming and hardware setup, but the data acquired from every tree interprets this ruleset very differently.

Link: Bartholomäus Traubeck