American Idols is an exploration of a self-sufficient system. There are four guitars, each facing an amplifier, and feeding back. In between the guitar and its amplifier is a piece of software that stops any pitches that might feed back from getting out of hand. If a pitch gets too loud, the software snuffs it out. The sound of the guitars is fed directly into the televisions through a modulator. See this video below for a general sense of the installation:
The only input to the system is the 60 cycle hum of the guitar amplifiers. This hum excites the guitars, causing the strings to vibrate and begin to feed back. The guitars act as resonant filters, only vibrating at the harmonics found on the strings of the guitars. To keep the system sounding pretty, the guitars are tuned to a just intonation scale based on the 60 cycle hum of the amplifiers. This is the entire system. It is left to evolve slowly over time. The guitars are arranged in a square around the installation space; one behind the televisions, one behind the camera, and two on either side.
