| Fabulous Sound Machines Details | Venue: Scarborough Art Gallery, The Crescent, North Yorkshire Dates:24th June- 24th September Opening Times: Tuesday to Sunday 10am-5pm Costs: Admission is by annual pass £2 adults/ £1 concessions (£5 family pass) Enquiries: 01723 374753 |
So what exactly do our most adventurous artists and musicians get up to in their spare time? Do they settle down with a good book, watch a spot of television or relax in the British summertime? Not a chance. A visit to Scarborough Art Gallery this summer will explain all. What is this reporter jabbering on about, you may ask yourself; well Fabulous Sound Machines is in town. It’s an interactive exhibition that combines art and music in possibly the most experimental fashion ever. It promises to be noisy, colourful and fun for all the family. Knowing the show was in town I thought I'd head off and investigate. On arrival I instantly see strange intriguing contraptions hanging above my head and hear loud spooky noises echoing around the walls. The exhibition is packed into three large rooms, all of which are heaving with chaotic juveniles highly fascinated by these inventions, while clueless parents try to work them. | "The inner-child is brought out in any adult that dare tamper with the sound machines." | |
The first room houses the ‘Chromatic Harmony’, a visually stunning piece of coloured sails and piano wires. The colour and sound installation is controlled and affected by people’s movements. Within a second of entering the room lights are flashing and my every movement traced by an almost aquatic noise that takes you to the bottom of the ocean or even another world. Yes, ok I was getting into the whole spirit of things by this point. Yet the creativity is simply astonishing and despite having a simple effect, it’s a highly original piece of visual art made by Lawrence Casserley and Peter Jones.
 | | A musical heaven |
The next invention I come across is equally staggering, the ‘Octo Organ’. The interactivity starts when a lever is pulled which sets off instruments, which you play with your fingers. Don’t ask. It’s one of those creations that has to be seen in order to be believed. The noises are bizarre and at one point sound more familiar to Rolf Harris playing his didgeridoo than just a wall of sound. So the Octo Organ, what to make of it? Haven’t the slightest. Unique, peculiar and quite unbelievable are just some words to describe it. Yet not surprising, as the inventor Simon Desorgher has been making sound machines for six years now and is responsible for the world’s largest set of musical drainpipes.
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It doesn’t end there though, he’s also played the flute suspended 25 feet in the air and performed on a vintage motorcycle wired up to computers. Now what do you say to a man who has achieved all that, well done, perhaps? Never in one solitary exhibition have so many superlatives been thrown at our next invention. Where do I start with this one? The Kaleidochord created by Johannes Bergmark is basically a piano that plays anything and everything. The ‘piece de resistance’ of the exhibition for me and a necessity for any band to have. Basically there are three keys to play a chord, like a piano, but instead of striking a string, the keys hit objects that make unexpected noises. Absolute genius! Inside this machine are organically grown seeds, backscratchers, cutlery, hairbrushes and plastic toys. The mind boggles, but this is so much fun to play and something I tried my best to hog all afternoon despite stiff competition from all corners.
 | | Don't you just love slate? |
Other inventions include the ‘two slate scrape’ by Will Menter, which investigates the sounds of two pieces of slate. Now I don’t know what was in the inventor’s coffee that day but nevertheless it’s an interesting piece, one of the more sane machines if that’s possible. The theme of slate continues as Will’s second piece the oddly named ‘slate peckers’ discovers melodies made by slate. Now personally I never knew slate could make a melody (or an interesting one at that) but with a wooden beater tapping against pairs of slates each tuned differently, any noise is possible.
 | | It's not just an ordinary phone |
Finally, after exhausting every other invention I toyed with Hugh Davies ‘Ring Dem Bells’ and ‘Room Harp’. The first was a set of telephone keypads that make the familiar noise of when you enter your village shop and an annoyingly loud bell rings. Someone should really tell him, walkie-talkies have been around for a while now. His Room Harp strapped to the wall is similar to the way a violin or cello works. Here by dipping your fingers in water and plucking the strings all kinds of noises are created. The exhibition’s emphasis is on fun and it works in what it sets out to achieve, leaving the adults in awe and the children fascinated. It was hard to see who was the most enthusiastic as the inner-child is brought out in any adult that dares to tamper with the sound machines.
 | | Mind your head |
The ideas are wacky and push creative boundaries unimaginable; just what goes on in the creators’ minds is a mystery. And any exhibition that opens its doors with a bog-horn (a toilet on wheels with drainpipes attached to it, that plays like a trombone) is fine by me and worth a visit. So what do artists do in their spare time? Well, on this evidence when there’s another invention just begging to be made, what good is spare time! Alex Jackson. | 
