Hornall Anderson's entry for the 2011 Seattle Design Festival pillar project. A handful of agencies were given a hollow 8-foot pillar and an outdoor location, and it was up to us to decide what to do with it.
Our pillar was next to the 619 Arts Building, which was about to be gutted and turned into condos. We decided to commemorate the building by allowing people to record their memories in audio form, and allow passers-by to hear the clips at the press of a button.
We studded the column with 255 white arcade buttons for playback, and 1 red button for recording. A laptop inside the pillar provided the brains, and the whole thing was powered with a solar panel and rechargeable battery.
Of course, art doesn't always go the way you thought it would, and most people were content to make weird noises. Which inspired us to later convert it into a sci-fi themed sound effect installation for the Seattle Interactive Conference.
Created by the HAX Lab at Hornall Anderson.