I just killed the battery originally included with the Buddha Machine I bought a couple years ago at the now sadly defunct Ozone Records here in Portland. It died with a chunky, distorted shudder, which is exactly what I would expect from a device that has proven it’s ability to alter space and experience with a flip of a switch and a turn of the dial.
For those not familiar, the Buddha Machine is a 9-loop pocket sound player, cleverly disguised as something akin to a cheap plastic transistor radio. A volume dial that doubles as an on/off switch and a toggle that swaps loops make up the full set of controls for the device. There is a speaker, a headphone jack and an AC plug-in. That’s it, but that’s not all.
The buddha machine is a lot of things at once. It’s a object of pure design fetish, and a vehicle for engendering interactive creation. A novelty and an instrument, deeply meditative and childishly fun. It’s elusively simple form is intriguing at a glance and once held and explored, becomes a tool of expansively unfolding complexity and possibility.
The loops contain within are samples from performances by FM3, the experimental duo (Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian) responsible for the buddha machine’s creation. How they ended up in a cheap, perforated plastic box is an interesting story.
It’s a pretty long story that started more than 10 years ago, when I found a similar device in a temple in southwest China. The machine in the temple had a Buddhist chant on permanent loop, and at first I thought it was just a tape player with an endless tape loop inside. But it had a really distinct digital noise. So I asked someone and they said it was a “chanting machine.” I bought two from the temple gift shop — all temples in China have gift shops that sell various Buddhist accessories — sent one to my mother and kept one. Over the years, I thought that it would be pretty cool if I was able to put my own tunes into a similar box. So about two years ago, I got serious about the idea and Zhang Jian and I set about finding a factory to produce what eventually became the FM3 Buddha Machine.
—Christiaan Virant interviewed by Marc Weidenbaum at disquiet.com
Over 50,000 units later, the lo-tech draw of the Buddha Machine remains as strong as it did when Brian Eno bought the first six. It’s been referred to as the anti-pod for good reason. Virant’s description of it being “essentially an ‘instant’ sound installation” is dead on. It’s not about playing music to be listened to, it’s about playing sounds to make music with. It’s about the immediacy of sonic exploration without mediation. Sure, the loops were created by FM3, but when they’re muffled in your backpack or blending with the drone of refrigerator din, the experience become everyone’s and no one’s at once. Delivered into unprotected instances, the loops are altered and determined by environmental factors, taking on a different tonality depending upon space it’s played in or the volume at which it’s played (the distortion and vibration from the cheap speakers becoming a part of the experience). We’re talking total ding an sich.
While a single unit has kept me intrigued, many users have taken to buying multiple units to stagger and “experience a sound experience somewhere between wallpaper and incense”, or play them side by side (buddha boxing). Another unit or two are on my list, right after a new AA battery with a reminder to record the event whenever it dies.
buddha machine loops: 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09 (mp3) / wav.zip
sources: buddha machine / FM3 / $23
inter/reviews: Studio360 / disquiet / boomkat / RA
sightings: boxing / flickr
re-usage: Sun O))), Robert Henke
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