Conductor: Suonare la Metro di New York

Conductor turns the New York subway system into an interactive string instrument. Using the MTA’s actual subway schedule, the piece begins in realtime by spawning trains which departed in the last minute, then continues accelerating through a 24 hour loop. The visuals are based on Massimo Vignelli’s 1972 diagram.

The piece follows some rules. Every minute, it checks for new trains launched from their end stations. The train then moves towards the end of the line, with its speed set by the schedule’s estimated trip duration. Some decisions were made for musical, aesthetic, and technical reasons, such as fading out routes over time, the gradual time acceleration, and limiting the number of concurrent trains. Also, I used the weekday schedule. Some of these limitations result in subtle variations, as different trains are chosen during each 24-hour loop.

Conductor è un progetto di Alexander Chen, il quale raccoglie in real time i tracciati dei treni della metropolitana newyorkese e li trasforma in un improvvisato strumento a corde.

Andando QUI potrete vedere e sentire il programma all’opera quasi in real time.

QUI invece trovate maggiori info sul progetto.