Culture
Rock Out to the Music of Electronic Garbage
Japanese musician Ei Wada hears tunes in your trashed machines.
According to the latest numbers from the United Nations, the world generated 14.1 million tons of small appliance waste in 2014, made of the discarded vacuum cleaners, microwaves, toasters, and video cameras you once treasured, then tossed. There were 7 million tons of scrapped screens, 3.3 million tons of small IT equipment (PCs, keyboards, scanners, etc.), and 1.1 million tons of lamps.
For Japanese experimental musician Ei Wada, those mountains of garbage are music. Since 2009, he’s been recycling e-waste to make strange but compelling electronic instruments.