The Sonikcycle Syndicate

I just had a curiously strong experience of discovery…

Earlier this evening, Kathy sent me video clips of a cool “wind catcher” and a “water scooper” from Sedona, AZ, which reminded me of a previous conversation in which I was relating my penchant for sonic art. In that conversation, I referred to an aeolian bamboo organ I had seen on the coast of The Netherlands. Seeing the clip of the Sedona wind catcher prompted me to see if I couldn’t find a picture of the bamboo piece to show to Kathy. I didn’t find a picture of the one in The Netherlands, but I did find one of an installation in Germany, including a sample sound file. Now, here comes the “secret” and my moment of discovery…

After listening to the embedded audio file, I decided to go back to the previous page. As it happens, I am using a fancy-pants wireless Microsoft mouse that has a few bells and whistles, including a button that ostensibly functions as browser “back” button, OR, with a track selected in iTunes, it moves “back” up the play list, and if a song is playing, it switches directly in “play” mode. BUT WAIT! That’s not what this is all about…. So, the German bamboo wind thing is playing along, I decide to leave the page by clicking the fancy-pants back button on the mouse…. but the page doesn’t change… instead… the audio file begins to play BACKWARDS! How cool is that??? As it turns out, this happens in the standalone QuickTime player, as well! Now, if you’re like me, you’re next question might be, “Does it play video backwards, too?” And yes, indeed, it does!

Below is an example of an audio clip that starts out forward then halfway through, after I click the “back” button, it plays the same bit backwards… and if you click the “back” button during the backwards playback, yes, it plays “forward”… I love it ;->

 

 Reverse Alleyroll [0:58m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 at 8:14 pm and is filed under Earth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.