Tactile Edimonium
Have you ever felt guilty throwing away an old light bulb? Found yourself staring sadly at its shiny, transparent globe, longing for some way to spare the landfill one more relic of our myopic, disposible society? Or, perhaps, you’re just enamored with the idea of reincarnation and seek to find ways to apply this concept to the inanimate like some universal caretaker of the soulless.
Perhaps it is a bizarre amalgam of these two possibilities that sparked in me the inspiration when, there upon the bathroom sink, sat two burnt-out light bulbs awaiting their inevitable fate. There must be a better way, I thought. Inspiration strikes me for no great purpose and in part of no grand scheme. Inspiration strikes me in the depths and throes of the mundane; a subconscious rejection of the established order of things.
Or is it a bizarre sort of resourceful frugality–an alleged trait of my heritage?
From whence the spark of inspiration came remains irregardless. The result was the Tactile Edimonium. An idea born, almost ironically, from a light bulb that would never burn again. Mounted in a repurposed light fixture, in turn mounted on reclaimed white pine paneling (lovingly hand-finished with teak oil), these bulbs have been remade as artifacts of sound. Performed with friction and percussive tapping, the Tactile Edimonium produces thumps, squeals and whines, evoking a wide array of sounds.
Below is a clean demonstration of the Tactile Edimonium, showcasing its raw electroacoustic possibilities, as well as a version of that performance drenched in distortion and reverb to demonstrate how the instrument could be used to generate dark ambient and noise soundscapes.
