Sonic Graffiti

Music helps people communicate things other wise hard to say. Music served as one of the earliest forms of social media, allowing message to meld with memory and movement in lyrical and rhythmic narrative. As technology continues to make music more accessible, the means by which music is produced, distributed and consumed is made so as well

Building upon themes around hip-hop culture, cyborgism and activism, Sonic Graffiti speculates on the social significance of music on man in the near future and its effects on human interaction with technology.

Sonic Graffiti Code Repository on Github

Concept & Ideation

Set in the year 2043, Sonic Graffiti gathers is musical lineage from a culture immersed in the remnants of a Hip-Hop generation: The "boom bap", the "Retro", Ed Koch and subway graffiti, vinyl, radios and blaring boom boxes which once helped relay the stories of those untold down a city block. 

Initial Collage

Overlaid in orange, a photo of the projects of the South Bronx in the 1970s provides the background for the cyborg. The architecture of the boombox is personified into human form to reflect the closeness of man to music and tech.

Moodboard

Hip-hop is the quintessential musical birth child of the relationship between man and technology. Whether the Technics 1200, the Roland 808, LL Cool J's JVC RC-M90, or the Akai MPC 2000 XL and beyond, technology has served as Hip-Hop's lifeline through production and distribution

Interviews

Deltron 3030, Rapper, Deltron 3030 (Album)

"The main goal of any technology is to make things easier to do. That could be abused, as it often is, or it could be used to go even further and reach greater heights."

Blog Link: Interview with Deltron 3030

Prototyping

The gas mask has a global has social significance which spans from graffiti writers of American urban enclaves to present day protests. It's connection to hip-hop, activism and even environmentalism made it the perfect catalyst for speech, music and activism. Through replacing the sides of each mask with speakers, I sought to capture the qualities of the stereo listening experience within the human instincts to survivalism - "I can't live without my radio!" - LL Cool J

I began prototyping through exploring the relationship between music and tech. This exploration began at synths, which produced sound, but did not provide the musical experience which captured the social importance of the music I was creating. From there I began experiment with the rhythmic and lyrical foundation traditional hip-hop music supplies.

From there, I explored how music could be controlled, similar to that of a DJ regulating the mood of a party. Replacing the former synth boards which were previously attached and keeping the auxiliary cord, I placed Raspberry Pi's on each side (2 Pi's per mask) to serve as mini turntables which could be controlled directly on the mask and eventually through my iPhone using mobile Terminal apps

Although I featured a boombox in my original collage, it was the iterative process which allowed me to use technology make an item which truly reflected that ideal: being able to share music and stories that meant something to those around me because of the abilities of technology.