We’ve come a long way from Steamboat Willie. This week, Mickey Mouse takes the form of a faceless audio-visual orb that visualises any music it hears.
Designed by Polish design firm PanGenerator, Mickeyphon is a giant A/V unit shaped like Mickey’s noggin. When it hears music it swirls about its axis in the direction of the sound, and then maps it visually on its “face” with flashing lights and moving pixels. The result is a pretty cool toy that juxtaposes Mickey’s innocence with unsettling, futuristic vibes of robot takeover.
PanGenerator says it designed the weird art for Disney, but there is no word yet on what Disney will actually do with it. I’d giddily run laps around it while banging on a xylophone like the children in the video to see what happens.
Images via PanGenerator Facebook; GIF by Andrew Liszewski