Art Processes

a short by Lernert Engelberts & Sander Plug

Commit and dedicate yourself to even the most stupid ideas that come to mind. We ve built a glass harp and learned to play this 18th-century musical instrument. Instead of a classical piece we choose the classic 20th-century piece ‘No limit’ by 2unlimited — easily the worst song ever!

Commisioned: MTV Europe for MTV Shorts

And Yes: it is real and no post production tricks. DUH!

In the garden of my house there's a tree with lots of randomly grown twigs. It looks odd and nice at the same time. One day I asked myself if I could create a piece of music with it.

To tune the tree I picked a fundamental note and tuned the twigs by trimming them with a pencil sharpener. I used two Røde NT6 and a NTG-2 as microphones, combined with a customized stethoscope.

I recorded the tracks live on a Pro Tools LE system. I didn't use any synthesizer or sampler to create or modify the sounds. All the sounds come from playing the tree, by bowing the twigs, shaking the leaves, playing rhythms on the cortex and so on.

At this link you can see some pictures with more detailed descriptions: behance.net/Gallery/Music-from-a-Tree/263872
I hope you'll like it.

UPDATE 10/24/09. If you'd like to connect on Twitter:
twitter.com/DiegoStocco

The track is also available as an high-quality download on my Bandcamp page: diegostocco.bandcamp.com/track/music-from-a-tree

Two typographers ( Pierre & Damien / plmd.me ) and a pro race pilot (Stef van Campenhoudt) collaborated to design a font with a car.
The car movements were tracked using a custom software, designed by interactive artist Zachary Lieberman. ( openframeworks.cc )

Download the font here: nl.toyota.be/iqfont

More pictures here: flickr.com/photos/40243214@N05/sets/72157621047564023/

Time lapse video of my latest painting created for the "Stick em Up!" documentary by PR!MO. Check out the films blog for more info @ stickemuphouston.blogspot.com.