Zero Orbit is a kinetic, sonic sculpture inspired by J. G. Ballard's short story "Singing Statues". In Ballard's world of Vermillion Sands, artists harvest singing helixes from the desert to build generative sound sculptures that react to the viewer/listener. Zero Orbit contains four cassette recorders loaded with endless tapes containing music samples. A computer program tells the cassette recorders to randomly toggle between recording and playback so that the sound composition evolves and incorporates new sounds from its environment. When not recording, its wings fan open and closed along with the music.

Excerpts from "Singing Statues" by J. G. Ballard (1962)

"As he knew only too well, sonic sculpture was now nearing the apogee of its abstract phase; twelve-tone blips and zooms were all that most statues emitted. No purely representational sound, responding to Lunora, for example, with a Mozart rondo or (better) a Webern quartet, had been built for ten years."

"Immediately the statue came to life. About twelve feet high, it was shaped like an enormous metal totem topped by two heraldic wings. The microphones in the wing-tips were powerful enough to pick up respiratory noises at a distance of twenty feet. There were four people well within focus, and the statue began to emit a series of low rhythmic pulses."

"The statue was only equipped to play back a simple sequence of chord variations on the sonic profile in focus."

"Knowing that Lunora would soon realize that the statue's repertory was too limited for her, I picked up the hand-mike used for testing the circuits and on the spur of the moment began to croon the refrain from Creole Love Call. Reinterpreted by the sonic cores, and then relayed through the loudspeakers, the lulling rise and fall was pleasantly soothing, the electronic overtones disguising my voice and amplifying the tremors of emotion as I screwed up my courage."

"Unobserved, I slipped my hand into the tool-bag and drew out a tape spool. Clipping it into the player deck, I switched on the table. The statue vibrated slightly, and a low melodious chant murmured out into the still air."

"I would gladly call once a day and feed in every aria from Figaro to Moses and Aaron."

"At last I recorded the final tape, for the first time in my own voice. Briefly I described the whole sequence of imposture..."

"Then, lying in a hollow below the ridge, I found the source. Half-buried under the sand like the skeleton of an extinct bird were twenty or thirty pieces of metal, the dismembered trunk and wings of my statue. Many of the pieces had taken root again and were emitting a thin haunted sound, disconnected fragments of the testament to Lunora Goalen I had dropped on her terrace."

"As I walked down the slope, the white sand poured into my footprints like a succession of occluding hourglasses. The sounds of my voice whined faintly through the metal gardens like a forgotten lover whispering over a dead harp."