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Weather Thingy, created by Adrien Kaeser at ECAL in September 2018, is a sounds controller that takes live climate data to modify the sounds of musical instruments. There are two parts to this device. The tripod microphone includes a wind vane, controlling pan, an anemometer, controlling the LFO, and a rain gauge, controlling the chorus. All of these parts are connected to the main controller with which the composer can manipulate these different elements. Through the Weather Thingy, Kaeser wanted to aurally share with the audience his live source of inspiration and how climate impacted his musical compositions. Software used to create the Weather Thingy include Arduino, C++ and MIDI protocol.
I found this project to be astounding because, having composed music myself, sometimes I wish I could share my sources of inspiration and really let my audience visualize the atmosphere in which I wrote a song in. The Weather Thingy combines musical composition with natural elements in the environment and seeing how Kaeser wasn’t only able to get inspiration from nature but also incorporate nature directly into his compositions, is something I found really refreshing.
Weather Thingy – Real time climate sound controller