The MR-808 interactive is a robot installation featuring an oversized robotic drum machine – programmed live by the audience. The audience can program the drum robot in a collaborative process and listen to and see the emerging of the sound. At the exhibition site, the audience can stand in front of the robot, accessing the music structures via interfaces.
After we build the MR-808 Drum robot in 2012, we used it as a musical instrument at performances for a while. It was clear quite quickly that people were thrilled to see and use it on their own, so we started to think about an user input for the robot. The idea was to set the installation up in public and let everyone control it on their own. A social experiment in music, crowd-composing, collaborative robot drumming!
Very cool, My dad has an 808 in his studio... Still uses it as well :D