Bitcoin band —

Artist turns Bitcoin into music with giant Arduino-powered string instrument

It's not the most relaxing music, but there's something hypnotic about Silk's sounds.

Silk turns the fluctuating value of cryptocurrency into music.

Unlike their more established cousins, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Litecoin don't have the luxury of printed-paper and stamped metal to bring them to life. But one enterprising artist from Russia has found his own unique way of turning all those valuable digital bits into something far more tangible.

Standing at two meters tall, Dmitry Morozov's art piece "Silk" is a mesmerising mix of analogue ingenuity and digital dexterity that turns the fluctuating value of Bitcoin and Litecoin into a form of music. As the currency rate changes, motorised fingers pull on one of five strings: one each for the dollar, Yuan, Euro, Canadian dollar, and Ruble. The resulting sound is then picked up by a pair of off-the-shelf Dimarzio guitar pickups, and pumped out of a pair of nearby speakers.

A tuning mechanism consisting of 10 stepper motors and a further 10 servo motors for plucking the strings—combined with an arduino controller and some clever MaxMSP and Pure Data programming—means that even the slightest changes in data are replicated musically. The result is an otherworldly sound that's quite unlike any traditional instrument you may have heard before. And while you could argue that it's hardly the most relaxing music out there, there's something strangely hypnotic about the cacophony of sounds it creates.

Morozov describes the piece in true artist fashion as "transforming the network data of cryptocurrency, which looks very abstract for the spectator, into the string sound of no less elusive nature. The rules of the transformation are defined, and in future the artwork exists autonomously, generating infinite number of variations and harmonies."

Even if you're not on board with the ideology, there's no denying that Silk is a beautiful creation. If Silk has sparked your interest in musical and technological mash-ups, Morozov has a whole bunch of other interesting creations over on his site that are well worth checking out.

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