500 Pairs of Disposable Earbuds = Fine Art

Half DJ and musician, half avant-garde artist, all geeky engineer, Andr Fernandes Avel s is the daddy of the Headphones art project. A one-night display in Stavanger, Norway, the installation consisted of 500 pairs of ear buds tied together electronically and controlled by a mixer to create a controlled cacophony of mind-altering sound.

Here’s how it works: 960 of the little buds are speakers, collectively pushing buzzing sounds around the room, while the remaining 40 buds act as microphones to fuel the feedback loop. “Another unpredicted but welcomed sound source was some white noise from a fucked-up amplification circuit I built,” says Avel s, who tells us he wants to stage the installation again in Amsterdam, where he lives. Below is a photo of Avel s putting the final touches on his project; he says audio and video samples of the event are coming soon.