Composer and visual artist Kathy Hinde merges digital technology and the natural environment in works like “Piano Migrations”, which exists somewhere between an installation and an instrument. Taking the interior of a battered old upright piano, Hinde used it as a screen on which to project video footage of birds landing on telegraph lines. Their movements are analysed by MaxMSP software, which activates little motors and solenoids attached to each string, resulting in a delicate clatter of tuned percussion. Check out also the YouTube clip for a related project, a Bird Sequencer that Hinde created in collaboration with Ivan Franco. Inspired by the same patterns of migratory birds landing on wires – which reminded Hinde of notes written on the stave of a musical score - this piece is less mechanical and more digital. Rather than the analogue vibrations of physically plucked strings situated in the same physical space as the listener, Bird Sequencer deploys samples sourced from a prepared piano, whose sound was altered using nuts and bolts and bits of rubber.