PANHUYSEN, PAUL - Mexican Jumping Beans

Before leaving Mexico City I bought 200 jumping beans and immediately after our return to Eindhoven I started to experiment with them. In the past Ive worked often with animals, with birds, crickets and goats. I also use sensors, timers, solenoids, motors, galvano-meters, solar cells and oscillators to produce sounds. In my music I introduce both creatures and gadgets as independent and sometimes unpredictable musicians and fellow employees. I like to be surprised by the results of my productions, by the animals behavior. The input of such rather autonomous elements helps to reveal the qualities of universal laws and conditions that define order, structure, chance and expression in a living and changing world. It is curiosity which makes my work come into being. Jumping beans are magical living creatures. I worked with them for a couple of weeks, tried out various recording modes and different effects. The final selection on this CD is rather straightforward. There are four different pieces. For each recording I put 16 jumping beans in 8 containers. Clothes-pins glued on piezo discs were used as contact mikes on each of the containers, which were placed on a sheet of soft foam plastic. The beans were activated by a halogen lamp over the table. -- Paul Panhuysen.