Sculpt: An interactive sound/image work for sensor gloves - MEME Thesis Performance by Robert Griffin Byron :: April 1, 2008; 8:00 pm :: Grant Recital Hall (behind Orwig Music Bldg., corner of Hope Street and Young Orchard Avenue), Brown University.

Sculpt is work for sensor gloves, interactive electronics and interactive projected image that explores the relationship between synthetic sound and synthetic image through the tactile nuance of human gesture.

Robert Griffin Byron won the A.B.C. Young Composer’s Award in 1995. Since then, Byron’s chamber music and orchestral works have been heard all across Australia, the United States, and Asia. His work has been performed by the most of Australia’s state orchestras. Continue reading

Bioluster is a collaboration of the Accelerator Group. Participants in this project include artists Jite Agbro & Meghan Trainor, programmer Stephen Koch and carpenter Patrick Kerr.

Bioluster is a large-scale tactile interface that offers simple, yet not immediately obvious, methods of triggering different series of sound samples. This unique interface, created with RFID & Flash technology, is paired with materials and shapes that leave the audience with a tugging sense of unwarranted nostalgia for a system that has never existed. This project has grown out of Trainor’s long use and exploration of RFID as an artistic medium to examine our changing physical relationship to computing. Continue reading

“Standing in Shawn Decker’s sound installation A small migration is like being inside an exploded piano, or more precisely it is like standing inside the moment of explosion. The component parts of the work are suspended around me as though frozen in time. Still, yet full of potential movement; they generate a physical sense of imminence. At either end of the gallery large wooden frames support scaffolding bars rigged by chains from the ceiling. Piano wires are stretched across the gallery between the frames. At one end small striker motors are positioned alongside each wire; the installation responds to a series of computer-generated algorithms which trigger the motors that strike the wires.” - From A deep vibration: A small migration by Lizzie Muller Continue reading

Echologue, by Orkan Telhan, is a public interface for sensing and displaying socio-cultural characteristics of a place based on its sonic features. The goal is to build a medium that can reflect its surroundings like a smart mirror, highlight the salient details and patterns in the environment and contribute to our understanding of the perception of social places. The interface senses ambient sound, records deliberate user input and displays a visualization of the activity in that space as its output.

The design explores the utility of sound for envisioning new social, cultural and entertainment uses of public places and help us shape our relationships with each other with new social interfaces embedded in urban settings. Continue reading

The Ghost Station :: Kristen Roos :: September 29, 2007 :: Lower Bay TTC Station: Installation entrance at Cumberland St.

Lower Bay Station, Toronto’s ghost station, is used as a vessel to contain sounds that are within and below the threshold of human hearing - infrasound and tactile sound - where sound is felt rather than heard. Low frequencies created by cars and subways are contributors to the cacophony of infrasonic noise that exists deep below the rumbling of the city. These tactile sounds have also been associated with paranormal activity and ghost sightings. Kristen Roos’ audio art is informed by aspects of acoustic ecology, radio art and phonography.

Touch is a research project that investigates Near Field Communication (NFC), a technology that enables connections between mobile phones and physical things. Touch is not about music or anything musical at this point. Based at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design in Norway, this project is developing applications and services that enable people to interact with everyday objects and situations through their mobile devices. There are musical potentials here.

Touch consists of an inter-disciplinary team involved in social and cultural inquiry, interaction/industrial design, rapid prototyping, software, testing and exhibitions.
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The Sound of Touch, by David Merrill and Hayes Raffle (2007), is a new instrument for real-time capture and sensitive physical stimulation of sound samples using digital convolution. Their hand-held wand can be used to record sound and then playback the recording by brushing, scraping, striking or otherwise physically manipulating the wand against physical objects. During playback, the recorded sound is continuously filtered by the acoustic interaction of the wand and the material being touched. A texture kit allows for convenient acoustic exploration of a range of materials. Continue reading