The third installment of The Traveling Sound Museum, The Anomaly, continued the tradition of blending the lines between fact and fiction. The Anomaly, an abandoned National Parks trans-dimensional observation station in the middle of the Black Rock Desert, invited users to look through its coin operated binoculars in the hopes of catching paranormal activity. By rotating the coin operated binoculars left and right, viewers could pan the horizon just beyond the trash fence, and, if they stopped at just the right point, witness improbable things such as cheeseburgers, rubber chickens, and trans-dimensional beings popping in and out of existence.



Great care was taken to conceal all technology whenever possible. Each Coin-Operated binocular contained a camera, a screen, a raspberry pi, and digital compass to track rotation. The camera, mounted to the front of the bionoculars, provided a live feed of the actual desert. When the digital compass hit a particular bearing, translucent animation was added to the feed, giving the illusion that reality was experiencing a glitch.

Created with Support from The Black Rock Arts Foundation.

By Chris Cerrito, Mike Rosenthal, Chris Mckinley, Peter Scheidl, Beth Armstrong, Janet Frishberg, Cassidy Clawson, & Bez Shumway