Over a long time Staalplaat Soundsystem has created many different mechanical orchestras using all sorts of consumer electronics, learning the specific skills needed to control such an orchestra and how to compose. Previous highlights of Staalplaat Soundsystem machine performances include “Sweet Sissy and the Ballroom Hiss” starring 12 floor polishers, and “Avantilator” a composition for one hundred electric office fans in Helsinki. The very peculiar “Composition for Eight Refrigerators” or the installation for “60 vacuum cleaners and 2 cement mixers“, the Composition for 104 Washing Machines (Weis 104) or Earitainment in Stereo for hundrets of old radios, TV-sets and matrix printers.
At the heart of all our work is a low-tech philosophy, the aim is to make installations appear simple, revealing rather than concealing how they are made, so people exclaim –‘I could do that’. In contrast to much media art, it is not the technique that is central to the work, but the ideas behind it.
We did all these projects in different versions and constellations, allways related to the space and the circumstances. In museums and galeries, at festivals or for new music events especially for children.
We like to develop thoose projects further on and allways looking for new instruments.

>>> see all MACHINE ORCHESTRA installations and performances