Niklas Roy’s Lumenoise is a DIY project that lets you turn an old TV into a super-cool light synthesizer.

Here’s what Roy has to say about the project:

Lumenoise is a light pen, which turns your old CRT-TV into an audiovisual synthesizer. You paint abstract geometric patterns and sounds directly onto the screen. It is a playful and performative device, as anything that you do will cause an instantaneous reflection in the gadget’s sonic and visual output. I have captured a few minutes on video while I played with it:

Unlike modern flat TV’s, old school CRT’s draw the image line by line onto their phosphorescent screen. A photo transistor, placed on a tube TV’s surface, can recognize when the part of the image is drawn underneath it. If this photo transistor is connected with a micro controller which generates the video signal, the controller can localize the exact position of the photo transistor on the screen.

Here’s a demo of the Lumenoise in action:

See Roy’s site for schematics and part list.

If you make your own light synthesizer, make a video demo and let us know about it!