Fish caught making music in art installation
By Laura June 
posted June 17th 2010 12:41PM
posted June 17th 2010 12:41PM
Picture this: Five fish tanks side by side, each with one goldfish inside, video cameras setup to record the little guys' movements, and software to translate those movements into sounds. There you have "Quiet Ensemble," which recently grabbed up third place for the International Contemporary Art Prize in Berlin. These guys aren't exactly the Fleet Foxes or anything, but the results -- which you can see in the video below -- are still pretty impressive.
Wow! Here's to my betta singing!!
@prodigypv I hope they betta tested the software before going gold.
Pretty cool. Too bad I can't see the video on my iPod...
@Enzo304 Same here...
@Enzo304
Oh no! It's a Flash video! You criminals!
Geez....
@thisNthat It wouldn't be difficult for engadget to at least provide a link to an html5 version though.
http://vimeo.com/12344759
@Paradox00 Apparently that doesn't actually work. Just checked on my iPhone :(
Vimeo usually does.
@Enzo304 :'( Me neither
@Paradox00 Worked on my iPhone.....
Works fine! Thanks!! Interesting but I wouldn't call distortion music either. They should done something like Looptastic for the iPhone where it changes volume and frequency but still has an overall beat, similar to having a fish powered mixing board. That'd be tight!
Very interesting. I wonder how a whale or dolphin would interpret the sounds.
http://db-db-db.com/goldfish/
if you want to try it on an iPhone
happily can watch on N1
Nice
Very vimeo.
Fleet Foxes!!!! :D
Trippy... Wouldn't wanna eat a mushroom and watch this, though...
i saw something like this on Daily planet a few months ago, they were assigning individual tones to different fish, so that the blind could "see" the fish when they moved.
I wouldn't call that music.
@bluesky681 Thats the brillant thing about music, what actually constitutes music is subject to individual interpretation.
It may not be something you can tap your foot to, but it has musical qualities in my view, quite atonal actually.
@bluesky681
Thank you. I wouldn't call that anything.
Please stop smoking those things people is bad for your brain or what is left of it.
am like:
please god... don't let all the fish be up at the same time
Cool idea, it would be interesting to put the fish together in a tank with a bigger Z axis so you could assign a third modifier.
You'd probably need a different tracking method though.
Something smells a little "arty."