Wurlitzer

The Wurlitzer No. 1 is a site specific tech-trash album. A mobile app that creates an original electronic album, geo-located around the perimeter of the former Wurlitzer Factory in Buffalo, NY. It combines the history of the factory with a locative sound mixer that remixes old and new electronic music technologies, turning the edge of the old factory into a digital archive.

The mobile app is geolocated around the perimeter of the factory and can only be accessed by traveling to the site. Different mixes are then created by the various routes that users take. The path of the user on site determines the mix that one hears. If the visitor stands in the same place, the same sample will repeat. In order to hear the album, you must walk around the building.

While there are decayed electronic components and their ecological impact as a factor, what else emerges in the multiple layers of tech-decay? What is the relationship of obsolete mechanical technology, humans, and the post industrial factories in which the instruments were made?

A mobile app that layers all of this together into a musical experience on site seemed a fitting method to explore these questions.