Composer Lev Zhurbin points me toward a Symphony for Dot-Matrix Printers, presented several years ago by Thomas McIntosh and Emmanuel Madan in Canada. The site explains: "Dot matrix printers are ... turned into musical 'instruments', while a computer network system, typical of a contemporary office, is employed as the 'orchestra' used to play them. The orchestra is 'conducted' by a network server which reads from a composed 'score'. Each of the printers plays from a different 'part' comprised of rhythms and pitches made up of letters of the alphabet, punctuation marks and other characters.... During the half hour performance, the sounds are amplified and broadcast over a sound system. The audience is also presented with live images of the sound sources: the motions of the mechanisms, rollers and gears are captured using miniature video cameras installed inside the printers and projected onto large screens." The site has excerpts from the music, which left me yearning to hear more. The sweetly churning sound brought me back to college days, when I would stand by the printer in attitudes of agony, hoping that it would disgorge the last pages of my latest pseudo-Derridean nonsense paper in time for class.
