Gesture Assignment
Groupwork
Xuemei, Poonam, Begüm, An
Gesture Assignment is a groupwork assignment that asked us to thinking about the every day gestures and how they’re related to a specific objects, context or culture.
Inspiration
Gestures of a drummers.
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Imaginary drum when listening to any kind of music/ or without music at all.
One big inspiration for us was Kit Fitzgerald, John Sanborn & David Van Tieghem - "Ear to the Ground", where David uses the city of Manhattan as his musical instrument. He plays the surfaces of the sidewalks, buildings and phone booths with his drumsticks to elicit an ingenious range of percussive sounds.
We’ve also discussed different ideas on how to execute the assignment, including translating workout activities into sounds, or increasing sign language’s accessibility, but at the end we decided to go to this drummer idea of Begüm.
The Concept
Transforming the whole surrounding into a musical instrument and the performer
(or interactant) can play this imaginary drum without any need for drumsticks,
but the gesture.
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When a person unconsciously touch any surface in the given environment, there will be drumming sounds generated. There are 3 important factors in the concept: the force and speed, the surfaces and the proximity. Altogether, they define the final outcome of the sounds. (or interactant) can play this imaginary drum without any need for drumsticks,
but the gesture.
Potential Implementations
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Proxemics plays a significant role in this interactive design.
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Sounds can be generated from any surface depending on the person's proximity to the area.
- Input device options include, but are not limited to: wearables, cameras, and headphones.
Final Demo Video
The final demo video of the concept:
Testing out the portable micro and sound & Test recording the surface sound:
My part:
Besides participating in discussions and decided what to do together with the group, I also had some seperated tasks.
Before the shooting, I was searching and collecting all the necessary equipments. We’ve had different options for the microphones and recorder so the Aalto Takeout staff was really nice and kind to explain and suggest the suitable ones to me. Our equipments include: Zhiyun Crane 2 gimbal, an ancient set of Zoom H4n Pro recorder, a headphone and a microphone windshield.
During the shooting, I was on the sound team with Poonam while the other two worked on the photography/ videography. We shoot the visual first and then making the sounds based on it. Some sounds were taken from the same surfaces while some were done after in a closed environment.
After shooting, while the others worked putting together the different takes, my responsibility was to gather all the information and create our presentation.