Melo
Melo is a personalised music player designed as part of a research project: Embodying Meaningful Digital Media. Melo uses interactive objects to select between songs for playback within the user's digital music library. In this project, I worked collaboratively with Andrew, a 54-year-old avid music listener to create 4 personal objects containing meaningful associations to his listening experiences.
“music is the thing (or the place) in my life where I go [...] to have a good time”
Plast: An object used to play music from Andrew's youth.
I drew inspiration from Andrew's vivid descriptions of graphic music posters frequently encountered in the height of Sydney's pub-rock scene in the 1980's.
"they were just 2 colours strapped around telegraph poles"
JOEY: An object used to play Andrew's punk-rock music.
Andrew finds his punk-rock music to be refreshingly one-dimensional, appreciating its thrashy sounds and brash attitude.
"it's just not serious, it's short, it's disposable, it's loud, it's funny"
EMBER: An object used to play Andrew's storytelling music.
I drew inspiration from Andrew's appreciation for immersive songs that tell vivid stories sung over simple acoustic melodies.
"this is a bunch of people, like-minded people, sitting down and sharing stories"
hide: An object used to play andrew's country music.
Andrew has rich childhood memories of long family road trips with his father's country music playing through the car speakers.
"it's just a time in your life... when your life was much simpler"
Melo: A personalised music player.
Developing personal music categories from Andrew's digital music library.
Mood boards developed for each of the personal music categories from Andrew's digital music library.
Technical components of Melo: A raspberry Pi 3, RFID reader and sound card.
Experimenting with various materials and finishes.
Andrew's life narrative
Andrew is a 54-year-old music lover who grew up near the northern beaches of Sydney. Throughout his life, Andrew has enjoyed staying active, being outdoors and attending local punk-rock and country gigs. More recently, Andrew has picked up learning the bass, developing a new appreciation for the musicians featured in his music library. In the near future, Andrew looks forward to retirement, freeing time for travelling, live gigs and continuing to learn the bass.