One-Robot Band Plays Emo Music
When did robots ever care about the number of MySpace friends or Facebook invites they got, and produced music based on this data?
Never. Or at least, not since the creation of Cybraphon, a music-making instrument that’s made up of a collection of pieced-together mechanical and acoustic pieces in an antique wardrobe.
Cybraphon is the pet project of Scottish experimental pop band Found, and Edinburgh University Professor Simon Kirby, and is a sort of parody of modern publicity-hungry bands who are concerned of image and media hype, so much so that their performances could get affected by what comes up when they google their names.
In the case of Cybraphon, attention is all it’s “living” for. This bot is capable of searching the internet 24/7, checking website hits, and finding out how many new friends have been made in its MySpace and Facebook accounts. Give it a low publicity rating and expect melodramatic tunes to emanate from it. On the other hand, seeing more friend invites puts it in the mood for playing upbeat music.
Think about this. Simply by reading this post now, you could be making some emo robot musician play happy music in Scotland.
But here’s something that could probably send the Cybraphon’s needle that goes back and forth from depression to delirium probably go into overdrive: Found lead vocalist Ziggy Campbell aims to have the robot signed into a record deal.
Now the question is — Can Cybraphon detect boos from the crowd?
