Katey Noone is a Senior Interactive Arts major at MICA. She focuses on creating small interactive objects that emit light and sound. Working with code, analog circuitry, and digitally fabricated containers, her work is accessible to all and explores the sense of wonder in engaging with a new thing.
Katey Noone, Interactive Arts, 2020
Project Overview
This piece invites you to participate in a collaborative musical experience. These instruments (some constructed through analog circuitry and others through coded micro-controllers) were designed to be intuitive to play while removing the fear of failure. Played together, the instruments generate sounds that engender a feeling of collaboration in a musical environment. Through their ease of use, they remove barriers and dispel the notion that one must be musically-inclined to create music. This piece was inspired by collaborating to make music while I was growing up. The goal was to commune and connect in ways other than through words, such as through sound.
Process
These objects began with an exploration of different forms of interactions. I wanted to create objects that facilitated an ease of use, with minimal instruction required.
The next step was to develop and create the electronics best suited to the interactions I intended. I experimented with many different circuits and codes before settling on the ones most streamlined for my desired experience. The codes, compilations of language learned in previous years of study, are completely my own. The circuits, though using techniques learned from outside schematics, are entirely unique as well.
