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Thanks for pointing out the work of Paul De Marinis, that is beautiful!

Eric Siegel
Executive VP
    Programs and Planning
NY Hall of Science
47-01 111th Street
Queens, NY 11368
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718 699 0005 x 317
www.nyscience.org


On Jan 17, 2006, at 3:03 PM, jason jay stevens wrote:

> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology  
> Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related  
> institutions.
> ********************************************************************** 
> *******
>
> I took part in an exhibition in Germany back in 1999 that included  
> a fantastic giant pyrophone built by Bastiaan Maris, consisting of  
> 12 pipes, twelve to twenty feet tall, each.  The controller was a  
> simple stack o' cams, each switched to one of the pipes.   
> Soniclally, the experience reminded me of sitting at the edge of a  
> pond back home in Michigan, at sundown, listening to the frogs.
>
> While on the subject--or, rather, while gradually getting  
> tangential to the subject--check out the work of Paul De Marinis, a  
> sound artist at Stanford.  I've not seen "Firebirds," personally,  
> but it sounds out-of-this-world:  controlled electrical fields  
> modulate gas flames housed in birdcages, producing the sound of  
> famous twentieth century political speeches!  Too much!
> http://www.well.com/~demarini/exhibitions.htm
>
> jason jay stevens
> [log in to unmask]
> www.potterbelmar.org
>
>
>
> On Jan 17, 2006, at 12:28 PM, Ian Russell wrote:
>
>> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology  
>> Centers
>> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related  
>> institutions.
>> ********************************************************************* 
>> ********
>>
>> No harm in attempting a simpler solution, before getting into the  
>> complexity of Schlieren optics. Set up a burning candle just below  
>> the top of the organ pipe, illuminate it using one of those low- 
>> voltage desk lamps with a tiny halogen bulb, and cast the shadow  
>> of the hot air above the flame onto a large white card. The  
>> further from the flame you put the lamp, the sharper (and dimmer!)  
>> the shadow.
>>
>> If that prototype works, it could save a lot of hassle. If the  
>> sounding organ pipe shows no effect on the swirling hot-air- 
>> shadow, then the much clearer Schlieren pattern probably wouldn't  
>> show the effect you need either!
>>
>> Pieces of dangling tissue paper must be the easiest possible  
>> solution. But wondering if low notes would cause the candle flame  
>> itself to move gives me another idea. Why not experiment with gas  
>> flames mounted close ABOVE the open ends of SEVERAL organ pipes?  
>> It's just possible that the flames might be made to dance with the  
>> music, which would be utterly awesome...
>>
>> You could easily prototype this with an ordinary gas blowtorch set  
>> to a gentle, luminous flame, held above a sounding organ pipe.
>>
>> Hey! I just typed 'flame organ' into Google and discovered that a  
>> flame organ or Pyrophone was invented by Frederic Kastner in the  
>> 1800's. There's a whole shedload of stuff about these things. The  
>> clever ones actually controlled internal flames to generate the  
>> sound, while less subtle versions apparently shot coloured flames  
>> out of the top. How cool is that? (Rats! Anyway, it's quicker to  
>> post a message to ASTC-L than it is to file a Patent...)
>>
>>
>> [log in to unmask] * http://www.interactives.co.uk
>> *
>> Give people facts and you feed their minds for an hour.
>> Awaken curiosity and they feed their own minds for a lifetime.
>> *
>> Ian Russell
>> ********************************************************************* 
>> **
>> More information about the Informal Science Education Network and the
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