Scientists Have Turned Spider Webs into a Musical Instrument
A couple of years ago, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (also known as MIT) made the technological breakthrough of creating music out of spiderwebs. With help from artist Tomás Saraceno, the team from MIT also managed to create a musical instrument called Spiders Canvas.
The team was led by scientist Markus Buehler. According to cee.mit.edu, Buehler studied “Postdoctoral Scholar, 2004-2005; Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Ph.D. (Dr. rer. nat.) 2004 in Materials Science (Chemistry), Max Planck Institute for Metals Research at the University of Stuttgart, M.S. 2001 in Engineering Mechanics, Michigan Tech, and B.S. Equiv./pre-diploma 2000 in Process and Chemical Engineering, University of Stuttgart.” Along with all of his degrees, Buehler has won 22 awards, including the Leonardo da Vinci Award and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.
Led by Buehler, the team made an algorithm of 3D architecture from 2D cross-sections to make the V.R. instrument. After that, they took different sound frequencies from various strands to play different patterns of music based on the web’s structure.
Spiders Canvas is a musical instrument that can be played in virtual reality, also known as V.R. When entering the V.R., Spiders Canvas looks like a room full of 3D spider webs. To play music, the person in the V.R. will pull webs to make different sounds. Once the player finds some combinations they like, the player can create their own music. “The virtual reality environment is really intriguing because your ears are going to pick up structural features that you might see but not immediately recognize,” Buhler stated in an interview with Sciencealert.com.
This interactive musical instrument would not have been possible without the help of artist Tomás Saraceno. Born in San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina, he is the author of the book Cloud Cities. Saraceno built his first studio in Frankfurt am Main in 2005, which was moved to Berlin in 2012. As stated in Sciencealert.com, “… working with artist Tomás Saraceno to create an interactive musical instrument, titled Spider’s Canvas. Now the team has refined and built on that previous work, and added an interactive virtual reality component to allow people to enter and interact with the web.”
Buhler and his team at MIT have bigger plans for the technology they have created. Buhler demonstrated in arstechnica.com, “Now we’re trying to generate synthetic signals to basically speak the language of the spider… If we expose them to certain patterns of rhythms or vibrations, can we affect what they do, and can we begin to communicate with them? Those are really exciting ideas.”
All of the videos/songs created by Tomás Saraceno and Buhler’s team from MIT can be found on Markus Buehler’s Youtube Channel. As of today, Spiders Canvas has been released and is open for public use on a V.R.
James Makridis’ article was amazing. He added highly improved details and when I read his article about the spider webs I was amazed by how many sources he added.
Whats funny is that people thought that we were going to flying cars but we just made a spider web an instrument. Cool article by the way.
What I enjoyed most readings about your article was how you used a lot of quotes from the people working on it. That makes the article more interesting because you get to hear from the people who are actually making the Spider Canvas.
This article was great. Super enjoyable to read, extremely informative, and I loved how you chose to write about new technology and discoveries that scientists are coming out with. Great job James!
Wow! After reading your article I learned a lot about the new invention Spider Canvas, and throughout the article, I can tell that it is very informative and intriguing. Great job! 🙂
This article seemed like it was exactly what its title said at first. When I got towards the end I was intrigued at the fact t hat scientists could possibly learn to communicate with spiders. Although we may not have flying cars, possibly speaking to insects or animals is a start.
I enjoyed your article because it was very interesting and it is cool that that could become an instrument. Makes you think of what of uses everyday things could be, good job james.
Good job James I learned lot of what you can do with spider webs.
Reading this article about the Spider Canvas, I enjoyed learning what people can do with spiders’ web and what else might come from it.
Reading this article about the Spider Canvas, I enjoyed learning what people can do with spiders’ web and what else might come from it.