Quintetto Creates Fish-Driven Music

Your aquarium was never so useful.

Take five tall fish tanks, put a fish in each of them, and what do you have? A potential instrument that only needs motion-tracking technology to create music. The Quintetto uses video cameras to watch the movement of the individual fish in their respective fish tanks. Computer software interprets the fishy motion, producing understated tones that change with the fish's position, orientation, and direction.

The Quintetto is the brainchild of Quiet Ensemble, a design group that seeks to create music from the "invisible concerts" of life. The group's philosophy is essentially to interpret the random patterns occurring in the natural world, turning them into improvisational music.

Quiet Ensemble's creation recently won a contemporary art prize in Berlin. That's all well and good, but whether or not there are actually plans to turn the Quintetto into a retail-friendly fixture is a question that remains unanswered. The system will need some better integration and idiot-proofing to make any market debut possible anyway. Perhaps making the whole thing smaller is a good start?

Quintetto by Quiet Ensemble