Folktek

Shock Therapy The shock Therapy device is housed in what was once a medical shock therapy unit back in the 20's or earlier. Both control panels are custom pen and ink, wires travel through cloth covered cable to allow the 2 parts to interact. Both the dome on the left and the one on the right are glass topped and surrounded by resin - each glows white, and each contain a number of optic eyes. The shock therapy device is an optic eye controlled synth. Amongst other controls, the primary method for altering internally synthesized sounds, or the effects section (which alters either an incoming sound from an external source (ie drum machine), or internal synth section) is the amount of light the eye detects...The pitch of both the synth section (left), or the effects section (right) is controllable optically and the effects section controls are completely determined by patch cables...So the effect the eyes will control is determined by the player.

The sound is a compostion of deconstruction - a sound that is altering itself...At times glitchy or distorted, at others droning and sweet...The effects section sweetens a sound...Complete pitch adjustment in every aspect...Switch between 7 octaves total and optically play a pitch range within that octave without touching the device at all. Of course there are a vast assortment of other effects - vocoders and modulation etc....But the sounds are completely unique.

The synth section creates waves, occasionally dueling with modulation...It has controls for distortions, optical played pitch from extremely low to very high (adjustable), modulations controls, noise generation, and the ability to have the effects section alter the synth to great degree... The sounds are sometimes soft and subtle and at others loud and insane...It is a device that is ever changing - though the basic foundation for any sound or effect can be reestablished again and again. The work of art is not in just the physical presentation, nor in just the sound...The piece in it's entirety is the only way to understand what it represents...it is something ancient and decomposing made to be alive and ever-changing...it is compost - future relics - ancient remnants