Advertise here with Carbon Ads

This site is made possible by member support. ❤️

Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.

When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!

kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.

🍔  💀  📸  😭  🕳️  🤠  🎬  🥔

Brian Eno’s Glowing Turntable

Brian Eno holding his glowing turntable in a dark room

a turntable glowing in a dark room

Electronic music pioneer Brian Eno has designed a glowing turntable that shifts colors as plays records.

Brian Eno’s Turntable II is made up of a platter and base, which change colours independently, seamlessly phasing through combinations of generative ‘colourscapes’. The pattern of lights, the speed at which they change and how they change are programmed, but programmed to change randomly and slowly. It plays both 33 and 45rpm vinyl.

Only 150 will be sold and they’re £20,000 so hopefully you’ll see one in a museum someday. (via kevin kelly)

Discussion  2 comments

Terence Fox

The colors, endless mutation, and concentric circles reminded me that Brian Eno designed a generative music app called Bloom in the veerrryyy early days of the iPhone that I remember enjoying quite a bit.

Ben Kelley

I saw Eno in Utrecht in October. What an amazing show. The light was perfect… it fit exactly with Brian’s music and the Baltic Sea Orchestra.

Can’t find much video from the tour in a cursory search, but here’s one clip.

https://youtu.be/5-MFbyQgkWE?si=J9_9vSiJOPzLn7MC

Now I’ll have to go see if I can find $30k somewhere in the couch cushions. Not in this one, not in the other… oh well.

Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.

Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.

Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!