Okay, let’s get this straight – it was William Gibson on Twitter who actually posted this weird contraption saying it was spooky how it reminded him of Wintermute and the speaking head of 3Jane. As all sites woe, the video is in German (although it has English caps all over it and also in its description), but the main things is – a “speaking piano” reciting the Proclamation of the European Environmental Criminal Court at World Venice Forum 2009. Unfortunately it’s all in German, but what the piano says is all English, and it’s really neat to watch.

As the Dangerousminds blog puts it: From Berno Polzer, director of artistic programming at the Wien Modern: “I think, its partially understandable, partially not. And it plays well with the limits of our construction abilities. That is, we hear sounds that obviously aren’t normal music, but neither they are language, and one could say that sometimes, a bridging happens. Personally, I think you can understand individual words even without knowing the text, and the Eureka moment happens when you see the text, and suddenly, the language is there.”