2026
Hills Bros. coffee tin,
Dayton Audio DAEX25 Exciter,
Raspberry Pi,
Shelf pedestal
Build state:
Complete and functional
As my dad got less and less capable of taking care of himself, his caretakers and my sister took on his daily care. Feeding him... bathing him... giving him his medication. The one thing he could still do for himself was make coffee. He had a little coffee maker in his kitchen, and he would make himself a cup every morning. There were times when he would wake up in the middle of the night, be disoriented, think it was morning... and make himself a cup of coffee.
The piece came out of my anxiety over my dad's declining health... the physiological kind, the kind that lives in your body before your brain catches up. I spent more time with him at the end, and it felt like the first time I really recognized how old he'd gotten. I always pictured my dad as strong, and even though none of us escapes death, it seemed like an abstract concept... something that was for an unknown future date. But as I grew closer to him, my anxiety over his condition increased. I held it at bay because I didn't want to share this feeling with him.
The tin sits on a pedestal in the gallery. Inside is coffee. A proximity sensor hidden in the pedestal face watches the room. When you enter its range, something begins... a vibration, barely perceptible at first. The closer you get, the more agitated the surface becomes. Cymatics patterns form and dissolve in the liquid. The piece doesn't speak. It doesn't explain itself. It just gets more and more nervous the closer you come.
Each morning of the installation, a fresh cup must be made and poured into the tin. The smell of coffee fills the space around it. The smell of coffee conjures memories of my dad. The smell of coffee brings me to tears.
A PAM8403 amplifier board drives the exciter. A Raspberry Pi running Python generates the sine wave tones and handles all the logic. An HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor continuously reads the viewer distance. This data serves as the nervous system, choosing which frequency and intensity to play based on how close you are and how long you've been there.