Project 00 - The Bridge (in the musical sense of the word)

Made by Matt Prindible

In music, the bridge refers to the part of a song that reflects on the melody and prepares the listener for a return to the chorus. The Bridge is a participatory music-making project that uses the physical bridge between Bakery Square One and Two as both an homage to Pittsburgh’s jazz history and a way to combine the creative talents of Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood and Google employees.

Created: September 5th, 2018

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The Bridge uses Android Things to power the interaction and connectivity of musical devices placed at street level and within the bridge. Artists, creatives, and all passersby are welcome to use the devices (which use interfaces inspired by the Music Lab Chrome Experiments) to create the ambient soundscape within the bridge. Passersby in the bridge can use the path they travel as a passive way to provide feedback to the soundscape they hear. Creators on street level can also see their rhythms manifest and resultant feedback as a light show on the bridge (since sound will not work at this scale).

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We'll use physical instantiations of some of the clever musical "instruments" from Google Chrome Experiments

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There is a subtle communication strategy in the act of creating this music. Tension and dissonance will arise—it could be intentional, an tiny act of protest, or just poor musicianship—and can be resolved by other participants. Back and forth, call and response, patterns like jazz (which is a nod to Pittsburgh’s Hill District rich history of jazz musicianship).

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A Bill of Materials

"Instruments" based on Chrome Experiments (physical instantiations using some form of Arduino or Raspberry Pis as the microcontroller)

Media Server to receive input from "instruments" and synthesize soundscape

Speakers (playing sound directly from synthesizer running on media server)

Lighting (on dimmers, with controllers connected to media server)

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48-734 Reactive Spaces and Media Architecture

· 25 members

How can embedded computation change the way we experience our surroundings? This class will focus on the design and prototyping of reactive spaces. Over the course of several small projects and one...more


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In music, the bridge refers to the part of a song that reflects on the melody and prepares the listener for a return to the chorus. The Bridge is a participatory music-making project that uses the physical bridge between Bakery Square One and Two as both an homage to Pittsburgh’s jazz history and a way to combine the creative talents of Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood and Google employees.