This weekend was awesome. In Platform4 we hosted one of the most extreme voltage-meets-music experiments of all time on Danish (and European) soil: The so-called Tesla Coil Concert Experiment, also known as Tesla In Concert.
Daniel Uhrenholdt, Danish creator of numerous tesla coils over the last ten years, had teamed up with us (Platform4 and Hal9k) and musicians Randcore and Yngvesin to create a MIDI-interface that could send musical input to 4 large coils (including the largest coil on the European continent, over 4 meters tall) so that the musicians could play the coils as instruments. This setup was backed by a heavy PA-system to support basslines and lower frequencies, so the sound pressure was...phenomenal. Additionally, the hall was blazed with huge purple 450.000 volt lightnings from the gigantic coil and it's three smaller buddies while thundering noise shook the old warehouse to it's very foundation. Amazing.
The concert was part of Culture Night in the city (an annual event) and drew in over 600 people who wanted to see this highly unusual and historic event. They witnessed a show consisting of three parts; first a segment from Vivaldi's 'Summer', next an 8-bit potpourri of well-known songs interpreted by chiptune artist Randcore and finally kidney-shattering sub-bass dubstep sounds from Yngvesin, resulting in the what is probably the most vicious wobble bass ever heard (anyone else ever tried adding 450.000 volt thunder to a bassline?).
Fun and fascinating fact for the geeks: The coils were running half power so they wouldn't damage the building. When given full throttle the big bastard often squirts out lightnings of over 1.000.000 volts!
Check out this gallery on Flickr - as well as this article on the platform4.dk website.
