Sunday 2 March 2008

HARDDISKO



NOISE & DISTURBANCES AMPLIFIER SYSTEM

Techno basics. “Harddisko” is an installation piece dealing with raw computer sounds. Rhythmic noises are evolving from sixteen harddrives, which are orchestrated through simple power circuits. By cutting the harddisk's power in varying sequences and amplifying the peculiar sound characteristics of each drive, an unpredictable acoustic and visual interplay is taking place.

Defective harddisks are collected from different PC shops, companies and institutions in the exhibition's local area. Each harddrive's casing is being removed and a special sound pickup is mounted on the drive's read head and connected to a sound mixer.

Video | Harddisko

As soon as a drive recieves power, it conducts an initialization procedure with the heads moving in a specific pattern and generating sounds. These patterns vary throughout different manufactors, models, production series, firmware versions and the disk's history. The drives of the exhibit are placed within several individually controllable power circuits using interval switched power supplies.

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