Maxwell Schwartz

= Division III =

This article is part of a Climax Div III Issue. By Josh Schneider, Arts &amp; Entertainment Editor.

Maxwell Schwartz, a graduate of Ridgewood High School, in Ridgewood, NJ has created one of the most unique, if not somewhat esoteric Div III projects seen this year. His major work is basically the creation and production of musical instruments to be played by gerbils, for gerbils. Schwartz first had to identify if gerbils responded positively or negatively to different aural frequencies, learning first that any tone that might resemble the cry of a hawk or a predator was unfavorable. Schwartz also challenged the notion of an instrument that a gerbil would be able to ‘play.’ Identifying the gerbil’s natural propensity for climbing and jumping onto platforms of various elevations, Schwartz devised three different platform based “gerbil organs.”

Originally intending to use rats, Schwartz switched to gerbils for their relatively shorter breeding cycles, their friendly social tendencies, and natural predisposition for sonic communication (gerbils, like other rodents, thump their feet on the ground in order to communicate sonically over distances).

Schwartz, who is a top ranking chess player, wanted to combine his love for music, interactive digital art, and animals in his final project. His Division III began taking form in his second year when he utilized his hamster’s running wheel as a component in a “semi-failed” project for a Lemelson course. He then used the hamster in an interactive digital art course taught at Smith. Says Schwartz, “I decided to go in a more behavior oriented direction. I chose gerbils because they are social and highly intelligent when it comes to rodents; they use various forms of seismic communication, plus they are friendly, small, and highly curious. My Division III became, and is, an “observational study” (very loosely so) involving the fabrication of three “instruments” featuring different forms of interaction based on gerbil behavior. These are then filmed, and accompanied with a paper including citations and analysis of prior gerbil research which ‘justifies’ the project.”