Testing our new piece during installation:
Elements Sea – test
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Category Archives: Physical Computing
MANDALA – 6 Panels
MANDALA Progress
Firewall
Firewall is an interactive media installation created with Mike Allison. A stretched sheet of spandex acts as a membrane interface sensitive to depth that people can push into and create fire-like visuals as well as expressively play music.
The original concept stems from a performance piece I’m currently developing as Purring Tiger (with Kiori Kawai) titled Mizalu, which will premiere in June 2013. During one scene in the performance dancers will press into the spandex with the audience facing the opposite side. Mizalu is about death and experience of reality, so this membrane represents a plane that you can experience but never get through. As hard as you try to understand what’s in between life and death, you can never fully know.
The piece was made using Processing, Max/MSP, Arduino and a Kinect. The Kinect measures the average depth of the spandex from the frame it is mounted on. If the spandex is not being pressed into nothing happens. When someone presses into it the visuals react around where the person presses, and the music is triggered. An algorithm created with Max allows the music to speed up and slow down and get louder and softer, based on the depth. This provides a very expressive musical playing experience, even for people who have never played music before. A switch is built into the frame which toggles between two modes. The second mode is a little more aggressive than the first.
User Testing:
Glockentar
The Glockentar combines a glockenspiel with a guitar.
Each time a string is plucked a glockenspiel bell is struck with a solenoid, and a beam of light is projected across the length of the string.
The light follows a logarithmic curve in terms of it’s speed as it goes up and down the string. It starts fast, pauses for a moment then goes back down the string.
The lights are essentially rectangles made in openFrameworks, then sent to MadMapper via Syphon.
In MadMapper they are then mapped to the strings.
An Arduino is used to turn the strings into switches. Each string acts as a ground, and electricity is sent to the pick. When a string is plucked with the pick the switch is closed and the solenoids and projections are triggered.
Here is the Arduino code:
Here is the OF code: