initiated February 2003

'design a musical instrument' - University of Wales design brief

Spinbeat is an exploration of hacking technologies from different contexts and placing them in public spaces to engage the participation of the public in the creation of music. Spinning around a full 360 degrees in its habitat, as the Spinbeat perceives its own world – a world determined by the agency of human beings – it responds with ‘beats n choons’.

Spinbeat was a hack of common yet outmoded music technologies that were typically designed for the private consumption of purchased music or for a one-way transfer of knowledge. The rotary mechanism was provided by a forlorn Technics SL-BD22 that had become removed from its hi-fi system, a Sony Walkman WM-FX113 and a hip-hop mix-tape generated audio, and a Coomber 393 rescued from a Secondary School provided speaker output. By interoperating ultrasonic sensors from a security system into this hack, Spinbeat provided a beat-generating instrument that interacted within its perceivable environment.