BY: AYA TSINTZIRAS
Want to combine music with your body art? Now it’s possible, thanks to a Moscow-based artist.
Dmitry Morozov, who describes himself as a “media-artist, musician and engineer of strange-sounding mechanisms,” has created a machine that plays music by scanning a uniquely shaped tattoo on his forearm. Morozov, who also goes by “vtol”, has combined his love for robotics and electronic music with “Reading my Body.”
So how does it work? Morozov moves a device that looks like the neck of a guitar with several wires above the eight-inch tattoo on his forearm that resembles a barcode. The machine has a metal railing, hand controllers, an arduino nano (an electronics platform which gets information from sensors to respond to the surrounding atmosphere), and black line sensors.
And – probably the coolest part – it also uses a Nintendo Wii controller that distorts the sound when the device is moved.
As Morozov’s artist statement says, his invention “combines human body and robotic system into a single entity that is designed to automate creative process in an attempt to represent the artist and his instrument as a creative hybrid.”
Some would say that the sound that emanates from the tattoo is noise rather than music – it has a haunting, screeching quality that sounds like an out-of-tune electric guitar – but either way, the sensors can actually be controlled, which is an interesting blend of science and artistic expression.
The Moscow-based artist sometimes focuses on manipulating barcodes, creating something cool out of the ordinary, but all of his projects explore sound and/or light. His previous works include “Post Code” which resembles a barcode-scanning machine “to encourage personal communication” and “Anywhere” which features an umbrella-like object that produces sound through speakers.
