Shadow Play

Location
Route 1: Zähringerstrasse 61 via Hebelstrasse to Lammstrasse 10
Route 2: Hirschstrasse 116 to Hirschstrasse 103A
Route 3: Sophienstrasse 185 to Sophienstrasse 82

Duration
From September 17, 2021

Notice:
In the interests of road safety, it is obligatory to fix a smartphone holder to your bicycle’s handlebars and keep a close eye on the traffic while using the app. Best experience with sunny weather.

Go to the app here

How do streets in Karlsruhe sound? Can the play of light and shadow of buildings onto Karlsruhe streets be set to music? The open-source app Shadow Play for iOS devices lets you translate architecture into sound at three different locations in Karlsruhe. By riding a bike with a smartphone mounted pointing down, the pattern of light and shadow in the streets becomes a musical score. Like a mechanical music box where the arrangement of the pins on a drum pluck the teeth of a steel comb to produce musical sounds, in Shadow Play, the transitions from light to dark drive the playback of generated sounds and sequences as well as the speed of the audio playback. With compositions recorded by GPS tracks and performance videos, Wilcox documents the function of his work additionally. You can view the materials on an online map and find the download link for iOS devices here.

Supported by the UNESCO City of Media Arts Karlsruhe 2021 project support program for media art

Dan Wilcox

Dan Wilcox (*1981) is an artist, engineer, musician, and performer, who combines live music performances with experimental electronics and software. With these new means of expression, he explores themes from science fiction, space travel, and similar. His father was an aerospace engineer and Wilcox grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, known as “Rocket City” in the USA. He operates at the interface of media technology, art, and experimental music. Wilcox lives in Karlsruhe and is a part-time artist and researcher at the ZKM’s Hertz Lab.