My name is Adrienne, and I’m a graphic designer at Red Hat—I create meaning using type and image. The other day I stumbled upon a story involving music, sustainability, and open source. Needless to say, I was intrigued.
Brian Crabtree and Kelli Cain are the artists and creators behind Monome. At first glance, this cool device is simply a white square with a grid of buttons. It produces music and the buttons light up. It seems random, but the lights and music are synchronized.
Monome is a musical interface that connects to a computer–and is controlled by the applications the computer runs. It respond to the keys being pressed, and the LEDs light up–it is, at its simplest, a programmable controller for music, video, games, or art.
The beauty of an open process allows people to build on the idea, creating more than anyone could originally imagine (just like Fedora). People have manipulated Monome to do a number of things. » Read more
Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century
Author: Alex Steffen and others
Publisher: Abrams
Publication date: 2006
http://www.worldchanging.com
Have you heard of the pot-to-pot refrigerator in Nigeria or the Rural Studio project in Alabama? What about the People’s Grocery project in West Oakland or South Africa’s social defining Mont Fleur Scenarios? Insightful stories of real people doing real things. All of these projects and ideas are introduced in Alex Steffen’s WorldChanging: A User’s Guide to the 21st Century.
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