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KaleidochordToccata by tintinnebula
While you read about it and browse the pictures, why don't you listen to this beautiful recording of a visitor to the Gloucester exhibition, composer/improvisor Julia Price!
“A freely improvised piece for Kaleidochord [...] With obbligato accompaniment by the wheezing and clunking of the Octo-Organ [Simon Desorgher] and the shimmering of sheet metal from Tsjuji [Max Eastley]. Please forgive the distorted passages - got a bit carried away and wasn't watching the recording levels!!! Performer - julia cl price. Release date: Jul 23, 2010 ”

The Kaleidochord consists of a harpsichord keyboard of 61 keys and a vertical soundboard, on which each key triggers different sounds, some purely acoustic, others amplified with contact microphones, some perhaps more visual than timbral. It is meant to function as a playable exhibition object as well as a musical instrument, based on old ideas but with the Fylkingen exhibition Lydbilleder V (or Sound as Art as Sound) at Museet for Samtidskunst, Roskilde, denmark, the autumn of '99 as a point of departure. This is a photo at the installment of the danish exhibition, and 33 keys were activated then. For the following international sound and colour exhibition Rainbow Realm in the spring of '00 in the Liverpool Museum, 40 had became functional. For the exhibition Fabulous Sound Machines in York City Art Gallery (now York Art Gallery), '01, 49 were working. The same exhibition went on to Croydon Clocktower Gallery June-Sep '02. Then, 59 keys were functional. On the following exhibit in Island Arts Centre, Lisburn, northern ireland, July-Sep '03, it was complete with all 61. It has since been exhibited at the Sheffield Millennium Gallery May-Aug '04; Tulliehouse Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle Jul-Sep '05; in Scarborough Art Gallery Jun-Sep '06; in Ferens Art Gallery in Kingston upon Hull Jul-Sep '07; in Gloucester City Museum & Art Gallery Jul-Sep '10, each time with slight repair, adjustment, and when necessary, alterations. See the development in time of the instrument below.

The Kaleidochord at an early stage, before its first exhibition.

The Kaleidochord, early version, from the left...

...middle section...

... and from the right.

The Kaleidochord, played by children at its Liverpool exhibition, and in its Croydon exhibit.

The Kaleidochord, from the York exhibition (left).

The Kaleidochord, from the York exhibition.

The Kaleidochord, from the Croydon exhibition (with glass and with the table built especially for it by the exhibition team).

The Kaleidochord, from the Croydon exhibition (without the glass).

The Kaleidochord exhibited at "Fabulous Sound Machines" in Croydon Clocktower Gallery June-September '02, almost finished then.

The Kaleidochord in Croydon: left, front and right side closeups.

Arriving view of the Kaleidochord at "Fabulous Sound Machines" in Tulliehouse Museum and Art Gallery, Carlisle Jul-Sep '05, the finished version.

Total front left view, Carlisle.
Total front view, Carlisle.

Left corner, Carlisle,

and right corner views.

Left front view,

middle, and

right front views.

Aerial view, Carlisle.

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The Gallery
Updated the 24th of July, 2010.