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The physical design is tightly linked to the flow of data through the system. The console contains mountings for the inputs, the housing for the computer and sound cards, and the amplifier for the 4 speakers, and AC to DC converter for the amplifier. |
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The sculpture was placed out on the playa in the pictured configuration. The whole assembly, excluding the generator was approximate 25 feet in diameter. | ||
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The console was constructed using a 2x4 and plywood form wrapped with patterned paper, Mylar, and 1/4 inch blue Plexiglas fastened with finishing washers and wood screws. In order to have enough surface area and volume, the main console unit measures 2.5 feet in diameter and is fourteen inches tall. | ||
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The top of the console was constructed with two layers of Plexiglas with printed sheets of console instructions sandwiched between them and was held together by the bolts on the potentiometers. | ||
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Wiring for the control top was mostly haphazard by a crack team of volunteers on a kitchen table producing a spaghetti-nest of wires that was surprisingly functional. Components such as the computer (1 GHz Pentium machine), hard-drive, USB sound card (4-channel outs), and circuit board were bolted to the inside of the console unit. A 25-watt car audio amplifier and a Radio Shack 13.8 volt AC to DC 10 amp transformer (to power the amplifier) was bolted to the bottom of the unit to reduce the amount of heat inside of the console unit. |
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The inside of the sculpture was lined with sun-filtering mylar to add reflectivity to the blue plexiglas, and ideally, keep down the temperature inside of the box. This made the sculpture visibile as a bright sparkle on the horizon during the daylight hours. Four Blaupunkt 6x9 in-door audio speakers were mounted inside small-trapezoidal speaker boxes found at a discount store in San Antonio. The boxes were mounted on top of conduit pipe mounted on stands and were placed approximately 10 to 15 feet behind each corresponding console. |
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The unit was elevated on 4 legs of black conduit cut to allow the legs to be buried approximately 1 foot deep in the playa; the top of the console comes to a comfortable normal standing elevation suitable for adults. Blue rope-lighting was used to illuminate the bottom of the console. | ||
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