The title of the piece refers both to wind instruments as a category of musical instruments, and wind instruments as devices to measure the wind speed.

Flying and steering a kite, give you a sense of the wind not just as a measurement, but in its details, its variations at different heights, and changes in time. To fly a kite is playing an instrument, where subtle gestures with the hands can have profound changes in the direction that a kite is flying.


Wind Instrument - Marije Baalman from Marije Baalman on Vimeo.

The title of the piece refers both to wind instruments as a category of musical instruments, and wind instruments as devices to measure the wind speed.

Flying and steering a kite, give you a sense of the wind not just as a measurement, but in its details, its variations at different heights, and changes in time. To fly a kite is playing an instrument, where subtle gestures with the hands can have profound changes in the direction that a kite is flying.

For someone who watches a kiter, while the spectacle of seeing the kite glide through the air is great, these details of the continuous dialogue between the wind, the canvas and the kiter are lost; while for the kiter herself, this dialogue is what makes the sport exciting. Sonifying this dialogue, creating music from the wind and the movement of the kite, will add an additional dimension to flying a kite, and watching someone fly a kite.

To make the kite a musical instrument, I have created kites equipped with pressure sensors to measure the strength of the wind on the cloth, and motion sensors (accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers) to measure the changes in direction of the kite. This is a continuation of the work done for the Musicaerial of Frouke Wiarda, for which I made the composition V.L.I.G. and developed sensing technology.

At Sand Songs, The Hague, June 2016, photos by Pieter Kers

At Electropixel, Nantes, August 2016, camera still by Jonathan Reus

In Struer, July 2022

The work was commissioned by iii and was premiered at Sand Songs at the Zandmotor in Kijkduin at June 18, 2016.

Performances

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