/// DoryExMachina ///

Graffiti is one of the most powerful and most personal displays in the urban experience, and can be used to make statements, tag territory, spread messages — urban markup language in practice. However, the output is nearly always visual in nature, making this experience one-dimensional. Furthermore, rarely does the work have a brain of its own, and is usually incapable of reacting to anybody observing it.
Concrete Crickets was created to address this deficit, creating small devices that will be aware of passers-by as well as other units of their kind. Each unit consists of a sound generator, amp, speaker and sensory system, and is housed in camouflage appropriate to the streets of the city — soda cans, cigarette packs, and the like.

I love the streets of this (and just about any other) city, but it seems to me that the “magic” moments of serendipity are harder to come by. If this project can just create one moment of magic and beauty (corny as both those terms can be), than it will have succeeded with flying colors. Inpsiried by field crickets and fireflies on one hand and street artists on the other, this project aims to create, by installing small “crickets” in a small area of city space, a multi-directional audio experience. Each device is programmed with a particular voice, with each being part of a larger whole. When night falls, the crickets go active for a few hours, singing out in their particular way. When approached, the crickets fall silent (as would crickets and cicadas in nature). Each are sensitive to what happens to the others, and the end result will be waves of songs, changing and adapting to their surroundings.

The crickets looked like this on the outside:

And the recently-completed second version:

And this on the inside:

And a little clearer here:

Each unit contained an Atmega8 chip running Arduino, an OpAmp circuit, an ultrasonic rangefinder, two relays, a few capacitors to smooth out readings and values, a 1″ flat speaker, an itty bitty speaker (which I don’t think I’ll bother using in future versions), a hacked MP3 player, a AA battery for the MP3 player, a 9V battery to power the rest of the circuit, and a few other odds and ends. This was all soldered onto a perfboard which was then wrapped in a plastic bag and shoved into a crumpled soda can.

That looked kinda like this:

And this from the front:

I’ve been lucky enough to be chosen to present this at Dorkbot, which went wonderfully, and at Conflux, so it’ll be seen there, and perhaps a few other places shortly. Updates to follow.

Also, the Conflux postcard: