audiowear

By sarahendren

Apr 22, 2013

A man wears a long white porcelain necklace of eight oversize whistles, linked together by a chain.

Elasticbrand designers Arjen Noordeman and Christie Wright created this suite of sonic wearables.

Close up of a woman wearing a guiro cuff: a corrugated porcelain bracelet, made to be stroked by a finger on the opposite hand, whose tip is capped by a porcelain "thimble" with a pointed tip.

The series is inspired by idiophone instruments—those which make sound primarily through the instrument’s vibration, without the use of strings or membranes—and aerophone instruments—those whose sound is produced by the vibration of air, again without strings or membranes, but also without the vibration of the tool itself. The designers combined these structural qualities with the acoustic quality of clay in mind, resulting in “a trumpet bracelet, a güiro cuff, a whistle necklace, a pan-flute collar, a rattle and xylophone bangles.”

A large bangle bracelet, of porcelain, with five spokes shaped like baby rattles. One spoke is brass, like on a tambourine.

“Designed in Rhino software,” the designers write, “the models were first printed on the ZPrinter 450.”

A series of brightly colored bangles, square-shaped, playable by a xylophone mallet.

“Moulds were designed by splitting the models into parts and printing contra-mould parts for some more complex objects. After building the plaster moulds, all the instruments were slip-cast in porcelain.”

A "horn bracelet"—porcelain tubing wraps around a woman's wrist, like a coil, five rows deep. At the end of the coil is a small brass horn, like a tiny tuba.

Here’s the fantastic process video below. You can see the full performance of the works at the Museum of Art + Design here.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ68_IDWG8k&w=560&h=315]

More at the Elasticbrand site. At Y Not, via Seeing Sound.