冰淇淋樂器：舔一舔就能創作音樂
冰淇淋既可以作爲贏得小聯賽的獎勵，也可以用來撫慰分手後的悲傷。然而，在美食極客的手中，冰淇淋還可以成爲一種美味的樂器。設計師Carla Diana和Emilie Baltz近來發起了一場音樂表演，一羣四重奏演奏者聚集在一起，僅用一夸脫香草冰淇淋和一些高科技蛋筒進行表演。
3D打印的蛋筒中有電容式傳感器，而蛋筒被安放在一個基座型的箱子上面。樂手們站在箱子裏，兩臂放在身旁，用舌頭舔冰淇淋。當舌頭接觸到這個奶油冰淇淋時，信號就會被傳導到隱藏其中的Arduino板中，然後板上的軟件把信號轉化成聲音，最後由話筒輸出。
這一“舔樂樂隊”精心創作了一首由四部分組成的曲子，聲音中充滿了對冬天的冰柱和易打滑的冰面的回憶。四名錶演者各在曲子中扮演一個角色，只要用不同的方法舔冰淇淋就能發出或短促有力的聲音或長久的樂句。
起初選擇香草冰淇淋只是爲了保持基座與蛋筒的色彩和諧，讓演奏者的表演更有力。但是Diana和Baltz與Big Gay冰淇淋店合作爲表演者們製作了一款新的香草味，其中加入了辣椒。Diana說，“我們發現冰淇淋中辣椒的辣感讓演奏者在舔的時候更有力，因此演奏也更加熱情洋溢。”
據說，舔樂樂隊不久就會開始巡演。
Ice cream can be the reward after a successful little league game, a consolation after a bad breakup, or, in the hands of gourmet geeks, a sweet musical instrument. Designers Carla Diana and Emilie Baltz recently whipped up a musical performance where a quartet of players jammed using just a quart of vanilla ice cream and some high-tech cones.
Capacitive sensors were embedded in 3-D printed cones that were perched atop pedestal-like boxes. Musicians stood inside the boxes, arms at their sides, and licked away. When a tongue made contact with the creamy treat a signal was sent to a hidden Arduino, assigned a sound by onboard software, and pumped out through speakers.
Lickestra’s secret ingredient was cayenne pepper. “We found that the heat of the spice in the ice cream elicited a much more vigorous licking action and inspired some rather gusto-filled performances,” says Diana.
While Gene Simmons was born to play these instruments and Ben & Jerry would seem to be natural collaborators, Diana and Baltz teamed up with Buke & Gase, a musical duo known for their work with unusual instruments to help establish the sound. The brief was simple: translate licking into music. “They crafted a four-part composition of music that included sounds reminiscent of winter icicles and slippery surfaces,” says Diana. Each Lickestra performer was assigned one sound from the composition and could play it as a short burst or longer musical phrase by simply licking the ice cream in different ways.
Diana and Baltz’s studio was a cross between a Michelin rated kitchen and a mad scientist’s lab. In order to make the performance successful, the tech had to be hidden and great pains were taken to ensure the wires were all hidden inside the cones. They also had to become experts at packing the ice cream into the instruments to ensure that the circuits would be complete throughout the show. “We faced many challenges throughout the development of the Lickestra, but that just meant eating more ice cream until we had things resolved,” says Diana.
Vanilla ice cream was originally selected to maintain visual harmony between the pedestals and cones, and to make the movements of the performers more impactful. However, Diana and Baltz partnered with the Big Gay Ice Cream shop to develop an original flavor for the performance which was infused with Cayenne peppers. “We found that the heat of the spice in the ice cream elicited a much more vigorous licking action and inspired some rather gusto-filled performances,” says Diana.
The debut performance occurred at Specials on C, an art space that fittingly bills itself as a “bodega” for community and expression. “It was pretty spectacular to see how creative people could get when challenged to showcase creative licking in public,” says Diana. “Some people are quite the show-offs when it comes to tongue acrobatics. We observed lickers that were naughty, sculptural, rhythmic and ballet-like.” No matter how the artists approached their musical ministrations each lick produced a sound from the speakers accompanied by laughter, applause, and a sprinkling of giggles from the audience.
According to Diana, Lickestra will soon begin touring and more musicality might be on the menu. “We had sonic marzipan that could be smooshed, audible cocktails that could be sipped through conductive straws, and metal forks and spoons that would trigger tones when used to pierce food,” says Diana. “We discovered that the experiences that triggered sound through interaction with the tongue, teeth and mouth were the most magical and surprising, so we decided to focus on that for our public performances.”
Humorous undertones aside, the performance was a very serious effort to focus design thinking on the problem of overstimulation and underutilized senses. “The Lickestra was created to serve as an experiment in isolating a single gesture and understanding how one sense, such as taste, can be amplified by combining it with another sense, such as hearing,” says Diana. “The sensory experience from the interaction we created may get used in a consumer electronics product, a food item, a cocktail, or another art piece. We’re still exploring the power of tongue-based expression”.
