Wave
Hello? My name is Wave!
What if a speaker had an identity of its own? Wave was made for a single piece of music: Antônio Carlos Jobim’s ‘Wave’. It starts playing when powered on and cannot be paused.
- Type
- Experimental audio object
- Focus
- Sound, identity & lifespan
- Year
- 2025
An object with a lifespan
The music is stored on a battery-powered chip inside a sealed body. The battery cannot be replaced, giving the object a finite life. Instead of a machine that obeys its listener, Wave proposes a speaker with its own character and a beginning and an end.
Designed around a single song
The bass port was tuned with the contrabass in mind, focusing on the region around 50–68 Hz. The interior colours refer to the album artwork, extending the relationship between the music and the object beyond sound.
After the last play
Wave has reached the end of its working life. The object remains as a record of an experiment in listening, attachment, and the limits of a device.