Synthesizers serve several purposes, including allowing a person to compose music. It’s mainly electronic music that others will probably say is not real music, but to many, notes combined make a beautiful melody. The “Circuit Garden” by Kelly Heaton is a project that will make us think about nature and enjoy the electronic culture.
What you will hear are birds chirping repeatedly. In addition, there are different shapes of birds singing other tunes. The chirping isn’t annoying it offers a relaxing mood—that is if you are into stress relief music.
Designer: Kelly Heaton
The Circuit Garden shows off machine intelligence combined with human nature. The bird-shaped boards are not the only circuit items. Other shapes are mimicking different animal behaviors and sounds. So aside from birdsong, you will also hear chirping crickets and more.
The designer has created analog electronic designs that generate realistic sounds. What you hear are not real birds. They are not even actual recordings as everything is electronic. They are merely electric vibrations of artificial origin.
Kelly Heaton wants more people to discuss nature together with electronic culture. The designer focuses on electronic hardware. She wants to go basic with the circuits as they are what allow digital media to happen.
Heaton thought in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration as she learned from Nikola Tesla. She says her unique art explores different concepts while allowing those circuits to vibrate in natural patterns. Heaton explains that the “Circuit Garden pays homage to electrical oscillation, specifically the astable multivibrator, which is my favorite method for generating life-like waveforms.”
Heaton also describes her work as printed circuit birds. They are self-contained sound generators and are purely analog. There are no software or no audio recordings used here.
The Circuit Garden is like a collection of synthesizers producing almost natural sounds of birds and other insects. To change the quality of a song or sound, resistance in the circuit is adjusted. The designer is re-introducing us to the beauty analog hardware can bring. Creative electronics is a category that can still be explored further. We know it’s just there, but it takes a lot of effort to preserve the art.
There are plenty of synthesizers available that produce beautiful electronic music. We have a few favorites here including those by Love Hultén: the foldable synthesizer, the EC1, and the TE-LAB. We realize we’ll never live without music or sound effects that’s why we value these synthesizers.
