Drift
The white noise machine rebuilt as kinetic sculpture — brass tubes, servos and an Arduino drifting from noise toward indeterminate musical pattern.
Kinetic sound sculpture — wood, tuned brass tubes, servo motors, Arduino
Research
- GrantFaculty Research Initiative Grant, Dakota State University, 2025–26 ($5,000)
- TalkWork-in-progress presentation, DSU Research Week, March 2026
A white noise machine is designed to be ignored. Drift rebuilds one as a kinetic sculpture, something to listen to instead. Each sculpture is built from wood, tuned brass tubes, servo motors, and an Arduino microcontroller, and slowly shifts from noise toward indeterminate musical patterns.
What do we lose when we control our soundscape? Drift treats noise as material to compose with rather than something to engineer away.
One sculpture is complete, with four progressively smaller pieces planned. The work will be presented at DSU Research Week in Madison, South Dakota.
Credits
- Tate Carson
- Sound design and programming
- Tim Murray
- Structural design and fabrication