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    Automated Carillon Is Powered By Mac, Scary Tambourine Doll and Christmas Cheer

    This bell rig, called a carillon by we cultured folk, is a late post-Christmas creation that puts and nice bookend to the holiday. Just ignore the crazy, twitching tambourine-playing doll.

    The rig was created and programmed by Sarah Angliss. It plays many tunes, but in this video we are hearing a rendition of Troika, from Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije (duh).

    Sarah's provided some technical details:

    The bells are being played by wooden balls, spring-mounted on servo-controlled beaters, running off a LynxMotion SSC-32 board, receiving serial signals from a Max/MSP patch (which is interpreting a midi file). These bells have been recycled from Swinging London, my 2006 installation for the Overture Weekend at the South Bank, London. Here they've been mounted on a stainless steel shop fitting, reclaimed from the back yard of Moore's of Dunstable.

    And all that is powered by a Mac laptop (MacBook? Pro? She doesn't say). [YouTubeThanks, Sarah!]


    Send an email to Jack Loftus, the author of this post, at jloftus@gizmodo.com.