In German “Ohrwurm” stands for small insects, literally it means “earworms”. As people believe that they crawl into human ears and start to live there, the word also means “a piece of music that you hear and you can’t forget anymore.”

The German collective FUR (see also “Vroom Vroom“, “Inside a Flipper“and “The Pain Station“) came up with the Ohrwurmbeschleuniger to accelerate the development process of Earworms.
This microwave oven features an “Accelerator-Tube” mounted instead of the rotary plate and an Earworm Pipette to apply to your ear, so that you can listen to the availabe Earworms.

Two of the Earworms must be chosen for the process of acceleration (also referred to as “collision process”). At the outside of the Accelerator-Tube, microwave-sensors measure the microwave field. During the process the Accelerator-Tube rotates according to the cooking program chosen: if you choose “defrost” the Tube rotates slowly and the field is rather weak. If you choose the highest cooking program the Accelerator-Tube rotates very fast and there is a stable 700Watt microwave field generated inside the oven.

During the collision process the two Earworms are accelerated and merged into each other. Their musical form destabilizes and they are fixed according to the pattern of the microwave field measured by the sensors.
The result of the Collision is a new Earworm that has features of both of its ancestors and can be used in the next process. So it can be collided again with another one. And the parameters of the next acceleration process can be chosen.