The ORB is a magical sphere that is central to Vocal Vibrations Experience.

This object, designed by bold-design for Le Laboratoire, was imagined by Tod Machover and David Edwards in a conversation in late 2013. Since then, Tod Machover and his students at the MIT Media Lab and bold-design in Paris have developed the ORB.

The ORB is an object that the visitor will take in his or her hands. For six minutes, the visitor explores his or her voice, holding the “central tone” heard in the Chapel while experimenting and interacting with Tod Machover’s carefully customized composition. This subtly powerful musical experience is extended and enhanced by the vibrations of the ORB. Every vocal exploration causes the sound and the vibration to change, allowing the participant to enter into a special meditative relationship with his or her vocal vibrations. Each vocal intonation causes vocal morphing of the sound and subtle vibrations along the surface of the ORB.  The oRb becomes an incarnation and materialization of the voice, and suggests that one might place it somewhere else, against an arm, the neck, anywhere that vocal vibrations go.

Bold-design draws inspiration from the symbolism of the stones in a Zen garden. Porcelain, a mineral material, has been chosen for its tactile and vibratory properties.

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Photo ©Phase One Photography

More information on the ORB