Share your ideas for the next generation of musical instruments at Georgia Tech’s Guthman Musical Instrument Competition.

An annual event to find the world’s best new ideas in musicality, design and engineering, Wired magazine has called the competition an “X-Prize for music,” and contestants have likened it to a TED Conference for new musical instrument designers.

Submissions are being accepted online until November 15, 2012. Preliminary and final performances will take place in Atlanta April 11-12, 2013, where contestants will battle for $10,000 in cash prizes.
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Turbulence Commission: WoodEar by Peter Traub [Needs download, and Speakers/Headphones]:

Bringing the body of the tree to the network is a natural fit — a tree is a network too: roots sensing and absorbing nutrients, leaves sensing and photosynthesizing sunlight, and phloem and xylem running throughout to carry nutrients across the structure. WoodEar attempts to merge the dynamic qualities of this biological network with the digital network. A series of sensors attached to the tree stream data on the state of its environment — light, temperature, air pressure, and wind. This live data is merged with photos and recordings of the tree’s immediate surroundings into a generative application/installation. By downloading and running the application, anyone can access the live environmental experiences of the tree — one that may be very distant from them, but that still shares the same air, sun, earth, and sky. Continue reading