Self-Service Cumbia.Playing and connecting with a place through listening
Made in collaboration with MAAJAAM: Farm for Art & Tech
Interactive sound installation: A farm-side self-checkout stand transformed into a musical instrument, where scanning vegetables and found objects gradually composes a cumbia from the sounds of the MAAJAAM farm in rural Estonia.
Vegetables, discarded utilities, and arbitrary objects found around MAAJAAM were selected for their sonic potential and recorded using a handheld ZOOM H1n recorder and Piezo (contact) microphones. Their sounds were cropped, edited through Ableton Live and assigned different roles within a cumbia rhythm: a potato became a kick, a pumpkin a snare, a tomato a cymbal, while an old calculator, telephone, milk can, bowl and peas contributed different percussive textures.
The objects were then given individual barcodes and presented as products in a small self-service stand. Scanning an item sends its barcode through Python to a Pure Data patch, activating its corresponding loop; scanning it again switches it off. As visitors continue “shopping,” sounds accumulate and synchronize until a cumbia is collectively assembled.
This short exercise explores how listening differently can shift our perception of ordinary objects and places. Sounds from an Estonian farm are reorganized through a Latin American musical structure, creating a small cultural bridge between the context being encountered and a familiar rhythm from home. The resulting installation uses sound, participation, and play as ways of reconnecting with local surroundings and discovering unexpected possibilities within the everyday soundscapes.
Concept: Marcelo Guajardo Dávila with guidance from Timo Toots and Mari Liis Rebane
Status: Produced and dismanteled
Publications/Press:
- MAAJAAM
Interaction: Barcode-triggered, layered sound composition
Sound sources: Vegetables, found objects & discarded utilities collected on site
Recording: Zoom H1n, 3× piezo contact microphones
Audio: Ableton Live 12, edited and looped
.wav samplesProgramming: Python, Pure Data
Hardware: USB barcode scanner, computer
Musical structure: Cumbia / synchronized percussive loops
Techniques: Field recording, contact recording, sampling, sound editing, looping, interactive programming, participatory performance
Produced in: MAAJAAM, Neeruti, Estonia
Year: 2026
Photography: Marcelo Guajardo
Everything is an instrument if you listen to it.