Fast becoming one of my favorite contemporary artist Amy Young displays simple brilliance in her Mnemonic Devicive. The piece is composed of a Theremin, circuitry exposed, inside of a tire. A Theremin is an instrument played without being touched; the pitch of the emitted tone changes as ones hand gets closer or farther away. I probably have a special affinity for this particular piece because a close friend of mine built a Theremin but besides the personal connection that I feel toward the piece it still has an objective brilliance.
Amy built this Theremin for this piece and explains that she is still “humbled by electronics.” With this piece she seeks to communicate to the user the simple truth that even as society gets more and more advanced most of us as individuals have little understanding of electronics.
It is difficult to think of a more honest way to communicate this simple fact through an interactive art piece than what Amy has done here. Here in this piece is a Theremin, an instrument that simply begs to be played with because: it is so hard for most of us to fathom how it really works, it is fun and it is bizarre. We find the Thereminin in a tire, a very simple mechanism and we find it with all its circuitry exposed. It’s genius. One approaches the piece, plays the instrument, wonders how it works and is simultaneously being confronted with the very electronic guts, clearly displayed, that are the inner workings of this sound making device. I can imagine people approaching this and thinking for a moment that the tire is hiding the true mechanism and then realizing that the tire is hiding nothing which would only amplify, to the user how little of an understanding of electronics that he or she has.
What a good reminder it is to modern people that just because some among us have been graced with the diligence and ability of mind to develop various electronic devices that help make our lives easier we who use these wonderful gizmos need not presume that we ourselves are so advanced in thought. Perhaps the modern culture would be far more sober if more of us were “humbled by electronics.”