Morning alarms are often considered a necessary evil, not an inspiration.
But Eric Rieper (M.F.A. Digital Arts, Class of ’14) may be transforming that view with Wake Up With the World, an application that awakens each user with a collaborative musical experience. The app, which is currently available for download, has received coverage in outlets such as Fast Company, Creative Applications Net, PSFK, Synthopia, Hypernetic, and Trendhunter.
Wake Up With the World, which is part of Rieper’s final thesis exhibition, translates each user’s GPS codes into musical notes and collects them with those of every other person rising at the same moment. All of the notes are then combined, and the resulting song is composed of the presence of everyone else participating. Each person is not only a unique instrument in the composition—taking one of the four roles of lead, bass, chords, or percussion—but also a collective multitude in a global musical arrangement.
Rieper released the application on March 21, and has since attracted 1,161 users—many of whom signed up last week as press coverage increased. Rieper says the sudden popularity came as a surprise.
“I actually had to quickly reconfigure some things to accommodate such a large group of participants,” he says. “I hadn’t even imagined, despite putting over a year of work into the app, that so many people would use it.”
Wake Up With the World can be seen on Rieper’s Vimeo website, which also includes a download link for the application. More of Rieper’s work can be found on his personal website.