tonight after dinner, nicole and i stopped by the goodwill just to see what there was to see.  i happened upon this tiny rusted lamp on one of the shelves.  it was just what i was looking for!  kathan asked me to contribute a sound element to her portion of the store for a month show that opens next week.  she is working within the theme of canaries in the coal mine.  she has been busy making (dead) birds out of chrome wire and recycled yellow caution tape.  our original idea was to place some kind of sound emitting device inside one of the birds. it seemed like there would be plenty of room, but something made me want to try and embed the sound generator inside of an object that would exist along side the birds.  this little lantern was perfect.  it reminded me of something you’d see in an abandoned mine.

once i got it home, i went for a complete tear down of the lamp and all its parts.  i unscrewed the glass lens and to my surprise, the first speaker that i picked up was exactly the right size to pop right in.  inside, i was able to embed an old mp3 player that nicole and i found on a hike.  i also soldered on an 1/8″ jack that goes to the speaker and a momentary switch that can turn the mp3 player on/off and play/pause. i was able to allow the usb plug to pop out the top (under the red dome) so that i can still access it in order to load sounds onto it without taking the whole thing apart again.  i can’t believe how fast the whole thing came together.

this little guy sounds pretty good for just a tiny speaker with pretty much a tin can body.  

next step: make some ambient music using canary sounds as the main source material.