July 15, 2004

Music via Motion. Body movement to create music.
  • Interesting links, thanks. Along similar lines is some of the work at STEIM: BigEye for video tracking and Sensorlab (under development) for gestural control. Also check out Sensorband and their Soundnet.
  • Scientists are developing ways of capturing human movement in three dimensions which would allow music to be created with the gesture of an arm. It's interesting, but not a huge conceptual leap ahead of this thing, which dates from 1919-1920.
  • Ah, yeah, I was trying to remember what those things are called. Here's a question: the new fad in sci-fi movies now is a computer interface that works similarly -- you put on special gloves and move windows, push buttons, navigate files and web pages with your hands. Is there a real-world attempt at such an interface?
  • Yes middleclass, there are a few attempts. At Wired's nextfest this year I saw This one which was pretty neat. The 3D glasses they have you wear allow the environment to really jump out at you. I also read in either NewScientist or Popular Scientist recently about another similar interface that was aimed more at the home user. A more complex system can be read about here.
  • Also, I just found this link over at Slashdot, and thought it fit this thread nicely. This to me seems to be the coolest tactile user interface (TUI?) I've seen. Using play-dough, how wonderful!
  • That's a neat interface idea.
  • Very interesting, Gyan -- wonder if they'll soon come up with some ways this might be done visually (where artist creates holographic or other projections) as well as aurally. I've just about finished The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat which I think you and some other monkeys recommended -- wanted to say thanks to all for an engrossing read!
  • Gives new meaning to the old pick-up line: We could make beautiful music together.