Literature – Seite 2 – Costumes and Environment

Source : Robert Jacobs, Mark Feldmeier, Joseph A. Paradiso. 2007. A Mobile Music Environment Using a PD Compiler and Wireless Sensors. Responsive Environments Group MIT Media Lab 20 Ames St., Cambridge MA 02139, USA

Summary : The article „A Mobile Music Environment Using a PD Compiler and Wireless Sensors“ introduces a new technology, to modify music portable, without heavy equipment. They work with a Nokia N800 and use the Zigbee Protocoll, and their Pure Data Compiler, which reads text, parses it with Perl and uses C. They want to combine the usability of Pure Data with the efficiency of C, furthermore they improve the debugging. They communicate via a serial input and output with the Nokia and attach sensors to low power microcontrollers. They are aiming for a commercial setting. People could use their software and hardware configuration while jogging. The speed of the music could encourage people to run faster or slower or it simply tries to synchronise with the runner. Main points are portability(low weight, small size), even though fast and direct interaction, low costs and multiple hours of battery.

Relevance for our project : Due to the fact, that we work in a very special environment(theater/stage performance), we can only adapt parts of the article to our work. In our case, there won’t be a mobile phone with the actor or dancer. But we also have to consider wisely which hardware and software we use, to provide fast communication between sensor, arduino and stage-computer. To keep interference between actor and costume as small as possible, we defnitely need, low weight, small size and probably more or less invisible wearables or e-textiles.

Source: Danielle Wilde. 2012. hipDisk: understanding the value of ungainly, embodied, performative, fun. In CHI ’12 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’12). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 111-120. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2212776.2212789

Summary: The hipDisk is a device to be worn on the waist. It consists of two disks that do not touch each other, and extend the wearer’s hips horizontally. If the disks touch each other an electronic circuit gets closed, tones are triggered, and played through the integrated speakers. Soft switches are placed around the outer line of the disks, and the wearer needs to make strange movements with his/her torso causing the two disks to touch, and actuate sound. The creator’s idea was to give the moving body musical capabilities while doing unusual bends and twists with one’s hips. This opens new ways of moving to people, and extends perceiption as well from a user’s as from an observers perspective. The attention is shift to a new way of expressiveness, using it makes fun, and extends the wearer’s motor skills. Whereas from an observer’s perspective engagement increases because everyone wearing the hipDisk looks clumsy and silly, there is no way of delicate movements, but wearers seem to have fun, what makes one curious from the outside view to have the same uncommon experiences.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2212776.2212789 – Image by Danielle Wilde, ACM ©.

Relevance for our project: The hipDisks are an innovative wearable interface sensing uncommon movements of the human body – this can be inspiring for us to find our own ideas, and define an interaction scenario for on-stage performances. On the other hand, this device combines sensor (soft switches) and actuators (speakers) both at the same time, but we are to create a wearable that senses bodily data from its wearer, and reflects them through its environment. That means the signals gathered through the switches should have been transmitted wirelessly to an external music system for fullfilling our requirements. Further, the hipDisks can be worn by everyone, and we aim to create an application for performers (e.g. dancer or actors), but since the movements caused by the hipDisks are very uncommon and entertaining we guess they offer great on-stage capabilities.