Sound modules for the walking sticks used by visitors of the “Speed of Light” project by NVA, Glasgow. Barometric and acceleration sensors control a small DSP that runs a composition by Chris Weaver of Resonance FM.
Tag Archives: Sensors
Sax Control
Frank mostly does his own sensor controllers. Here I just helped him to connect it to a wireless Eobody interface.
Stereo Sehen
Tracing the path of the Berlin U2 subway at the surface with a video camera, then juxtaposing it with the tunnel view. Presented in “stereo” on monitors inside the subway carriages, synced to realtime with a jog wheel from the cab’s shotgun seat.
SPIN
Spinning ping pong balls around 2 axes. Intricate patterns turn into concentric circles. High speed, high precision stepper motors with custom drivers controlled by FPGAs solving 5th-order equations in realtime, with a focus on event timing. Also filmed with cameras to be presented on a series of monitors.
Klangballon
Tracking a balloon that carries trumpet players as well as sensors, transmitting information to a server that drives a set of MIDI sound modules, all wireless.
maßnahmenpaket
Installation at singuhr by Boris Baltschun and Serge Baghdassarians with “Z.K.M.” as well as new works like “duell”, “squaring (sauna)” and “spirit level”
sololala
Concert series curated by Gregor Hotz with 5 evenings juxtaposing the “Empress of Sounds” against “The Man with the Horn”. Or music by Alvin Lucier interpreted by women vs. saxophone soli played by men. The Lucier pieces were mostly realized with digital technology. In particular “Music for Solo Performer” was interpreted using a multi-channel alpha wave sensor and a periodicity detector implemented in MaxMSP.
Optical heart rate sensor
Most mobile heart rate systems take their measurements from a simplified EKG circuit mounted on a breast belt. As it will be too cumbersome to ask museum visitors to don this, we decided to go for an optical sensor that clips onto a finger.
In there, the pulsing blood flow changes the amount of IR light that is reflected back to the photo transistor. The disadvantage is that this type of measurement is much more sensitive, in particular when the sensor moves against the skin.
First GSR prototype
Decided to base the sensor system on Cypress’ PSoC architecture to explore the possibilities regarding its configurable analog subsystem. For now I’m using it to control the gain of the second stage GSR amplification.
Regarding wireless transmission we settled on WLAN and chose a Matchport module from Lantronix.
The cables you see in the picture clip onto standard electrodes.
New project: eMotion
The eMotion project aims to analyse the experience of museum visitors by tracking their position as well as biometric parameters.
My contribution will be a wireless GSR sensor to measure skin resistance and heart rate, while tracking will be accomplished by ubisense UWB tags.
The team includes psychologists, sociologists, researchers in art theory and visitor studies, musicians, artists, programmers, and designers.