Jamie Park – Looking Outwards – 04

Video of Weather Thingy on its official website

Weather Thingy, 2018, by Adrien Kaeser

Weather Thingy (2018) is a controller that builds sound using real time climate-related events. The device, composed of weather station on a tripod microphone and a custom built controller, transforms climatic data into midi data, which is then interpreted by programmed instruments. The user can also manipulate the midi channel to modify the effects. The most significant part of Weather Thingy is that it is updated live. When you watch the demo video of the device, wind, sunlight and water have different impacts on the music, creating a unique melody that could not be heard on any other time of the day.

According to the author of the post, the device is coded with Arduino, C++, and midi protocol. Although I have no experience using the three languages, I am thrilled to know that one can use coding to generate sound. Overall, I think it was very creative of Kaeser to convert weather data into melody. It must have been a lot of work and effort with a proper understanding of music, and I admire Kaeser for it.