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Google Engineer Turns Subway Lines Into Musical Instruments
January 31st, 2011
By John Pavlus
Read More: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663129/mtame-an-interactive-ode-to-nycs-subway-map
MTA.me: http://www.mta.me/
Manhattan denizens sometimes describe the sounds of the subway as the city's incidental music. Now programmer/designer Alexander Chen has created a more soothing version with MTA.me, an interactive NYC subway map-turned-musical-instrument that uses transit lines as its strings. Chen, who works at Google Creative Lab, used HTML5 to code MTA.me's behavior: not only do crossing train lines "pluck" each other's strings, you can do the same thing with your mouse. And as for the map itself, Chen chose the classic/infamous Massimo Vignelli design as his template.
The choice makes sense: the "strings" in Chen's instrument need to be taut and straight, and Vignelli's ruthlessly rectilinear design (inspired by the London Tube map, which was itself inspired by electrical engineering diagrams) provides the necessary visual tension for "plucking." But MTA.me isn't just design-homage in a vacuum: using the real MTA's public API, Chen's creation polls real-time train departures and arrivals to spawn its animation. The map then accelerates through a 24-hour loop of subway activity, generating music with just enough randomness to be interesting but not distracting.
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[video=vimeo;19372180]http://vimeo.com/19372180[/video]
January 31st, 2011
By John Pavlus
Read More: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663129/mtame-an-interactive-ode-to-nycs-subway-map
MTA.me: http://www.mta.me/
Manhattan denizens sometimes describe the sounds of the subway as the city's incidental music. Now programmer/designer Alexander Chen has created a more soothing version with MTA.me, an interactive NYC subway map-turned-musical-instrument that uses transit lines as its strings. Chen, who works at Google Creative Lab, used HTML5 to code MTA.me's behavior: not only do crossing train lines "pluck" each other's strings, you can do the same thing with your mouse. And as for the map itself, Chen chose the classic/infamous Massimo Vignelli design as his template.
The choice makes sense: the "strings" in Chen's instrument need to be taut and straight, and Vignelli's ruthlessly rectilinear design (inspired by the London Tube map, which was itself inspired by electrical engineering diagrams) provides the necessary visual tension for "plucking." But MTA.me isn't just design-homage in a vacuum: using the real MTA's public API, Chen's creation polls real-time train departures and arrivals to spawn its animation. The map then accelerates through a 24-hour loop of subway activity, generating music with just enough randomness to be interesting but not distracting.
.....
[video=vimeo;19372180]http://vimeo.com/19372180[/video]