Programmable Musical Pig

Cranmer describes the Programmable Musical Pig as "a robust steel pig with 56 arcade buttons that trigger interchangeable banks of audio samples." Made from a cast-off compressor tank and the types of buttons found on old-school Pac-Man and Mario machines (and partially assembled on Cranmer's kitchen table), this entranced-looking fellow has graced the stage with Nine Owls in a Baquette.

Crafting gizmos like these seems simply to be how Cranmer relaxes during his time off. He describes his motivation for the self-initiated projects as "learning new manufacturing techniques, and entertaining people. Or sometimes even just confusing people, for my own entertainment." And though his creations have wound up on display at more than one intriguingly named art exhibition or another, that's not necessarily the goal, he says. It's "more like, 'Oh, I've got a load of sculptures hanging around, maybe I could take them to Kinetica.'"

There's a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Programmable Musical Pig on this page of Cranmer's nervoussquirrel.com Web site.