{Q} The ABSOLUT MACHINE is certainly an elaborate device… how do you go about describing it, elevator pitch style, to someone who has not heard of it before?

{A} ABSOLUT Quartet is a robotic music making orchestra. There are three instruments and the web user is the fourth member of the quartet. The first instrument is a five meter long ballistic marimba which shoots rubber balls roughly 2m into the air, precisely aimed at 42 marimba keys.

The second instrument is an array of 35 wine glasses played by robotic fingers. The final instrument is an array of ethnic percussion elements which rounds out the ensemble. Users log into the website, enter a short melody, and watch as the machine develops the melody into a full unique 2.5 minute composition.

Users then receive a link to a video of their machine interaction which they can download and share with others. We would like visitors to leave the installation with questions about their role as viewer and participant.

ABSOLUT Quartet is a machine designed to give people a fundamentally new experience. The first part of this experience happens when people see the machine. Our goal was to create something to look like it was doing the impossible, in order to fully draw people into the experience.

After the initial spectacle, the visitor has the opportunity to directly influence the output of the machine. The visitor then makes the transition from audience to participant. Afterwards, they have a permanent record of their interaction with the machine, a personalized souvenir of their input and the machine’s output.

{Q} What inspired the design and purpose of the MACHINE, and why so big? Aren’t musical devices meant to be becoming nano size not several times larger than a grand piano?!

{A} The installation is all about providing visitors with a new experience. This experience blurs the line between art and viewer, and also allows connections between people in very distant locations. The physical size of the artwork is critical in accomplishing this task.

Through the website, viewers can interact directly with the machine to create music. They can watch and listen to this music being performed in the physical gallery, where they can also see and hear the visitors.

The physical scale and the spectacle of the machine provide a hook for the in-person viewers and a significant enough action for someone on a web camera to truly appreciate what’s happening.

Much of our technology is geared toward miniaturization. However, real, acoustic music follows different rules.

{Q} How long did the machine take to complete, from the moment you first had the idea, to the time of its first official performance?

{A} When our proposal was accepted by ABSOLUT, we had only four months to get the abstract idea into full working condition. We worked 120 days, with one day off, about 14 hours a day on average.

{Q} I imagine designing and building the MACHINE would have posed numerous challenges, what would have been some of the bigger ones?

{A} The biggest physical challenge was by far the marimba shooting machines. The machine shoots roughly 250,000 rubber balls every day. These balls fly through a roughly 4m long arc, and have to hit a key as thin as 5cm wide. In order for the machine to last on its own, you can’t miss more than about 1 in 10,000 shots.

This poses a very difficult engineering challenge, given the time constraints of the project. We spent 5-6 weeks prototyping possible solutions, and then integrated them into our design.

On a higher level, we wanted to give people an experience that felt non-superficial, whether a layman or a professional musician. In order to do this, we created the idea of the user inputting a theme, with which we generate a unique song for every person.

Making this song generating tool was a major challenge on the project, to allow it to retain the necessary simplicity while allowing the elaborations necessary for real musical expression.

{Q} My efforts to date at creating a MACHINE masterpiece leave a lot to be desired, but what are a couple of your favourite, or standout, compositions so far?

{A} There is no one composition that has stood out, however, just as if in a Bach fugue, a theme with its own complexity and pattern usually results in the most interesting song. A theme that is recognizable on its own will be recognizable in the ways it is utilized in the composition.

That being said, we are still frequently surprised by the output. Just last week, a user named ‘Moozart’ from the United Kingdom played some great tracks by using the machine repeatedly and refining his input.

{Q} And to what degree can the less accomplished composer, such as myself, rely on the MACHINE’s artificial creativity to “lend” a hand?

{A} Like any creative partner, with repeated sessions, you can learn the strengths and weaknesses and determine how you fit together. The machine was designed to make composers of all of us.