The Noise Barrels were a performed installation created by Maurits Kaptein and Oliver Moran at the Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, the Netherlands.

Taking inspiration from the passing of sound through analogue electric cables, they decided to play with attempting to pass sound through water in much the same way. The resulting Noise Barrels present a tension between organic and electric environments. Like the internet of US Senator Ted Stevens, communication is made through a "series of tubes," exploring noise, expression, communication and collaboration in a networked world.

The result is fragile but malleable. Like electric communication, a break in the line of communication leaves the message unheard, severing the communicant from his audience; but also, in opposition to the perfect copy of the digital age, the sound produced by the Noise Barrels must share its environment and so is affected by each node it passes though - as is the nature of presence. Creation and manipulation are performed with the hands, returning communication to a manual and corporal space. Interaction is a deliberate act of contact or interference, not automatic or automated: visible to the eyes, available to the touch and present in the ears.