Join artist, designer and performer Colin Self in MAD’s Artist Studio as he experiments with his newest musical instrument, an electronic vocal sampler. Commissioned for the series Making a Scene: Objects for Performance, Self’s sampler uses recordings (or “samples”) of sound that are played back through CV (capacitance-voltage) electronic instruments, materializing vocal samples to create live music. To deepen the interactivity of the sampling instrument, Self will utilize studio recordings to be played by performers as they move around a space, incorporating movement and dance into the live performance of audio samples.

During the course of this open studio period, visitors may drop in and learn from Self firsthand how he uses his skills in design and performance to find new ways of recording and creating music from one of the oldest musical instruments—the human voice. Visitors are also invited to offer their voice in the construction of a thirty-second vocal composition, which would be e-mailed immediately to the visitor and performed live during performances at MAD on April 17 and 18.