Feature: Traditional music boxes from Dong minority come face to face in London with 21st century science

A collaboration that started between one of Britain's best known universities and an ethnic community in China will see traditional music boxes taking a starring role at an event which opens Saturday in London.

A collection of music boxes were crafted in Hengling Village as part of an interactive project with Queen Mary University in London (QMUL). The idea was to combine traditional Dong crafts and music with the concept of music boxes used in the western world.

The boxes in "Intersections", a free exhibit with immersive installations, haptic interactions, kinetic sculptures and much more as a showcase of Msc and PhD students from the Media and Arts Technology CDT program at QMUL.

The event runs from Saturday until next Thursday. It will include a symposium, talks and demonstrations as well as an exhibition focusing on the relationship between the arts and science.

Queen Mary academic Dr Nick Bryan-Kinns set up a collaboration with Hunan University in 2012 after he led an expedition to find partners for QMUL. The two universities have since created a collaborative masters program, as well as joint research projects and now two summer camp activities.

The Hengling music box project, is a collaboration between Hunan University, Queen Mary University of London and British company b00t Consultants. They were made specially for the project and have never previously been used or displayed in Britain.

They are described as interactive artifacts inspired by the Dong ethnic minority culture in rural China and focus on Interaction Design with Audio (IDwA).

Included are Doye boxes with their beautiful local songs and memories from Dong culture.

People can interact by changing the position of the box, creates different atmospheres by projecting local patterns as shadows on coloured lighting.

The Dong Shine is a portable music lamp based on Dong culture. Drawings on papers represent sceneries using Dong-style patterns, playing Dong songs. People interact by waving their hand under the lamp to make it play different music.

Dong Tunes is a traditionally shaped Lucky Flower decoration hung in symbolic buildings in Dong's community for good luck.

The KeepMake is a modern-day keepsake for storing intangible materials found in the surrounding environment, drawing Inspiration from local waterwheel. It features the sound of the river; and makes sound of local waterwheel when tilted to ear.

Bryan-Kinns told Xinhua: "A Maker space is a collaborative work space for making, learning, exploring and sharing that uses both high tech digital tools and no-tech traditional tools. Maker spaces are quite popular in big cities such as Shenzhen or London, but ours is one of the first in rural Chinese location."

"The idea was to combine traditional Dong crafts and music with the Western concept of music boxes. The projects utilised local textiles and bamboo making to create hybrid objects interactive objects built locally and using local sounds using western technologies," said Bryan-Kinns.

A number of students from Hunan University, along with a Hunan alumni currently at Queen Mary studying for a PhD as a student of Bryan-Kinns are expected to go to the Intersections event. Endit