Sometimes typing the search term “los angeles music” into YouTube yields gold, sometimes it yields detritus. Today, it yielded gold created with detritus. And computers, cameras and cranks. Specifically, we found a treasure trove of documentation of a little Eagle Rock festival held over the summer (but just now uploaded onto YouTube) called Cams, Cranks, and Computers. Here's this by the Crank Ensemble.

A bunch of other clips from the festival after the jump.

The above video features a performance of Jim Bumgardner's piece: “Kasparov vs. Deep Blue”, in which a computer translates the chess moves of the famous match into music.

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This introductory clip shows odd whirligigs created by Jim Bumgardner, Carl Burmeister, Joe Cantrell, Daniel Corral, Frank Pahl, Joe Potts and Gary Raymond.

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This clip highlights a device that takes pixel data from any image and translates it into three-voice harmony. In the above clip, Carl Burmeister takes a photo of the audience makes music from it. “We'll see how you all are sounding today,” says Burmeister.

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We're not sure exactly what “Elmo” does, but creator Gary Raymond sure gets some strange and beautiful sounds out of it.

To see the entire collection of clips, go here.

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