Barcodes. We bump into one of them every day when we go to any kind of shop and buy any sort of products, from ordinary ones, like toiletries or snacks, to something special or very expensive and exclusive, like a luxury bag.
We usually don't pay attention to them as we see the shop assistant reading the barcode with the scanner and hear the familiar beep back that signals the system has registered the product.
But what if barcodes were more than just a series of lines used to store text information about a product and could produce a wide range of sounds rather than just a beep?
Could they be used to produce an entertaining symphony rather than just a boring and annoying beep? The answer, though improbable, is a definite yes, they could be used in more entertaining ways, and Tokyo-based Japanese sound artist Ei Wada has got the final proof.
Better known for his trademark electronic sounds generated by analog recorders with reel-to-reel magnetic tapes, for turning old electronic appliances into improbable musical instruments and producing mesmerising sounds with them, and for his performances with the Open Reel Ensemble that have also provided the soundtrack for live fashion shows such as Issey Miyake's, a few years ago Ei Wada started experimenting with the possibility of playing music using hacked barcode scanners with his group Electronicos Fantasticos!
The sound artist found a way to modify the devices so that they could read a series of assorted line patterns and produce a variety of beats and electronic effects and noises, once connected to an audio output.
The results could be simply disastrous, but Ei Wada has got an amazing sense of rhythm and even an old electrical fan can turn into a melodious instrument in his hands, and his barcode scanners can therefore produce magical sounds.
He also came up with a term to describe a person who makes sounds by connecting the scanned-signal of a barcode scanner to a powered speaker directly, rather than to a cash register - a barcodist.
You could also be a regular cashier during the morning and turn into a skilled barcodist at night, as Wada suggests on his site.
A while back he also came up with a "Barcodress", a design covered in black and white stripes slightly reminiscent of the dazzle camouflage patterns and created with a dancer in mind.
As the dancer moves, barcodists play the gown, generating a casual live soundtrack that guides the choreography of the performer. In this way, new relationships between music and dance expressions could be explored.
But how does the magic work? Ei Wada controls sounds with his scanners by varying certain parameters such as the pitch by moving closer or farther away, the speed and position of the scanner can also produce further variables.
The black and white striped images hide sounds in their patterns, just like the holes in the perforated cardboards of the Jacquard loom corresponded to the design to be reproduced (think also about early computer punch cards...), and the scanners control the sounds. The striped pattern turns into sounds by sending the electric signals generated by the reflection of laser to a speaker.
The latest development of this project is the "Barcode Boarding", which the artist calls a sort of "electromagnetic style of skateboarding": Ei Wada attached a barcode scanner to a skateboard reading barcode signals printed on the ground. In a video Wada is shown on board of a skateboard, producing scratching sounds, and with a Barcode Scanner Guitar, an instrument that, you guessed it, has barcodes rather than strings.
In May, Wada did a "Barcode Boarding" event with the Kitakyushu Skateboard Association in which the skateboards were employed to create intriguing sounds and choreographies.
We can only hope that "Barcode Boarding" will become an Olympic discipline as soon as possible as "scratchboarding on barcodes" sounds and looks extremely fun, and, who knows, maybe at some point we will see an entire ballet based on Ei Wada's "Barcodress" or a fashion collection by an avant-garde fashion designer or brand (à la Anrealage?) featuring clothes with prints of barcodes that can be played. In the meantime, Ei Wada and the Electronicos Fantasticos! will be heading in September to the Norther Alps Art Festival in Omachi, Nagano, Japan, for the joy of all the fans of Ei Wada's inventively fascinating beats.
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