In Finland, the homeland of Nokia, mobile phones are referred to as Kannys, which literally means “an extension of the hand”. I would like to make this extension of the hand very visceral by combining Nokia’s N900 with retro virtual-reality peripheral, the Nintendo Power Glove. The resulting hardware hack would enable hand gesture based interaction with the N900, controlled through the glove interface.

In order to answer a telephone call, the user makes the ‘telephone gesture’ and their hand becomes the handset, bringing a whole new meaning to “talk to the hand”!

Also as part of ISEA 2009 I’m running a workshop on ‘Hacking Toys Into Tangible Interfaces‘ at Dundalk IT. We’ll be building unique game control gizmos by adding usb connections to cheap electronic toys. The workshop is an introduction to physical computing, covering some basic interaction design theory along with practical hardware hacking techniques. There’s more on the workshop and everything else that’s happening as part of the conference at isea2009.org.

First speaker was Gavin Burke from Galway based Future Audio Workshop who spoke about the physics of sound, how synth technology can reproduce these and his companies virtual synth product ‘Circle‘. Two years in development, Circle functions as a standalone instrument, a vst or a pro tools plugin and combines synth modeling with an interface that doesn’t try to reproduce the look of a hardware synths control panel but instead uses the full visual and control affordances the computer offers.

Next up Peter Kirn from CreateDigitalMusic examined the common metaphors that are used in music software, like the piano roll, the linear timeline and tape splicing and the possibilities for breaking out beyond these conventions. He cited current examples like the Ableton Live interface, the Tenori-on and many of the new touchscreen music apps for the iPhone like Brian Eno’s ‘Bloom’ and RJDJ. The possibilities of using Processing to make experimental music interfaces was also explored, one example shown was a circular sequencer that took inspiration from Balinese Gong circles.

We then viewed Niamh Ahern’s ‘Totally Wired‘, a documentary centering around Analog Synth store Schneiders Büro in Berlin, the musicians who buy their equipment there, the hardware manufacturers (many of which are based around Germany and are small family run businesses) and provides a great look into what motivates people to pursue Analog Synth hardware in this age of digital everything. Afterwards there was a Q+A with Niamh and Andreas Schneider. Andreas also presented an improv session on a patch cable controlled synth, and was so in the zone that afterwards he started talking to the audience in German :)

The final session was delivered by Mark Jenkins and Dave Vorhaus of White Noise and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Mark has wrote a book detailing the evolution of synth technology from analog through to virtual analog and took us on an audio journey through this development and his use of all forms of synths in his compositions.

Dave spoke of his experience recording the first ever electronic album ‘Electric Storm’ in 1968 while working at the BBC. The process was painstakingly laborious, the synth was tuned to play a note, this was recorded to tape. Then the oscillator was retuned, and the next note recorded… and so on. Interestingly he said this pioneering ‘cut and paste’ production method was inspired by the tape editing techniques of his father who was a blacklisted film director. Dave also said how he really doesn’t like keyboards because that their scale imposes limitations on how the instrument can be played, limitations he has sought to overcome with his double bass like Kaleidophon controller.

There were a couple of common themes through all these presentations. First was that all agreed (apart from one dissenting voice in the ‘Totally Wired’ documentary) that synth software along with regular computer hardware have finally reached the level of exactly modeling the sound qualities of analog hardware.

The other theme was the importance of the musician to instrument connection through the interface development, whether its through the cutting edge control and visual feedback of Circle or the visceral musician to hardware relationship that ensures the continued sales of analog gear at Schneiders Büro.

Either way the new language of electronic music control and notation is still under development and is going to keep evolving in new directions, not just due to commercial concerns but also due to the new found ease of access to software and hardware creation tools for the traditional end-user group, now able to undertake authorship of their own instruments and interfaces to create a new generation of music performance technologies.

Below is a work in progress shot from my ‘Alternative Displays’ project, it’s a 4 x 4 grid of square electromagnets. These are controlled by an Arduino and a Djuicer (a custom circuit designed especially for the workshop by 1scale1). A framed sheet of perspex goes on top of these and it contains a layer of industrial printer toner. When the magnets are switched on the the metal fibres stand up and you see a ‘pixel’ in the dust. Thanks to Mattias, Tony and David at 1scale1 for all their help making this. Next step is to have custom animations appear in the dust and have it respond to some external inputs.

It was a lot of use for my work, I found out a bit more about how all the components work and how to read the circuit board, also picked up some handy soldering tips. The piece of video hardware I had to play with was a Vanguard VA-445 A/V Edit System, now with 4 externally housed switches added to trigger off video glitches. Here’s a good interview about Mr Klomps work from makezine and some youtube footage of another video bending workshop.

‘Tiny Tag’ by team ‘Play It!’ is a graffiti simulator inspired by Tag Tool. ‘Play It!’ converted the steering wheel toy into their tag controller, allowing you to select a background, then pick your tags and move, rotate and scale them as you please.

Here’s a look inside the controller:

‘Music Maker’ by ‘Spanner in the works’ hacked this sound board toy into a controller for an ambient music generator.

A closeup of the keyboard hack, safely encased in an Ikea lunchbox!

Here’s a screenshot of Music Maker in action, when you hit a key on the board the corresponding shape lights up on screen and you hear a note, it plays the theme from ‘Close Encounters’ quite nicely!

Pixcube by the ‘Banjoes’ is an image browser, the ‘My First Keyboard’ was heavily modified to become the pixcube controller, with a new paintjob and several new buttons.

Here is the Pixcube itself, each side’s colour corresponds to a button on the controller.

When you press a button on the controller, the cube unfolds and you can navigate through the pictures, this is the portfolio side.

Magical Star Guitar by the ‘Three Amigos’ uses a converted Barney Guitar to control an game for young children that teaches counting and shape recognition. The battery case was carved away to make room for the keyboard module.

Finally, ‘Pass the Bomb’ by ‘Kawaii Productions’ combines this kids globe and a wireless keyboard to create an elimination game for up to six players.

Evil frogs have taken over the world and it’s only with the help of creatures from around the world that you can defeat them! After selecting the number of players the timer starts and you have to press the button corresponding to the continent shown onscreen, then pass it to the next person. If the timer goes to zero before you hit the button your eliminated!