Make a Wish is an interactive sound installation created for the Music Week 2015 at Shanghai United International School, Pudong Campus, IS Primary Department in February 2015.

Students approach a recording interface – a white circle on the outside of a big black box – and record a wish into a microphone hidden behind it. A computer application realized in the programming environment MAX MSP triggers four independent, simultaneously working playback engines that randomly choose a recording and play it back on either the left, the right or on both speakers at randomly timed intervals. The result is a dynamic, ever changing sound collage of the recorded wishes.

Prior to recording, students spend time composing their wishes. In making a wish for someone else, they explore the notion of selflessness and “walk” along the continuum between personal desire and vital needs of others. Make a Wish was first exhibited in February 2015, after the Western and before Chinese New Year and therefore a time when Western and Chinese cultures traditionally make wishes.