The Giant Cowbell

The World’s Largest Cowbell is an interactive sound sculpture that pays homage to the ubiquitous cowbells at cycling event while poking fun at the cultural trope that “bigger is always better”. Working with multi-media artist Scott Kildall, I created the concept for a bell that would produce unexpected sounds. 

Inside the shell of the “bell” is a bluetooth mouse in a small box. As a user shakes the bell, the small mouse movements are transmitted to a computer running a custom audio player. When the mouse movements hit an adjustable threshold, an audio loop is triggered and continues as long as the mouse movements continue. Users can choose from a variety of amusing and irreverent audio samples such as: sheep, film dialogue, laugher, applause and other looped sounds either selected randomly or assigned by the user.