This Is What Happens When You Trigger Sound With Movement #WearableWednesday #wearabletech #Arduino #art #dance

Choreographers have different inspiration when it comes to movement. Some will look to be motivated by the environment, while others want to work with the initial momentum of a body part. Of course there can be other bodies that cause a reaction if you are working in a group, leading to interesting collaborations. Amateur creates a perplexing emotional ride that I can only describe as the dance version of Minority Report. It mixes wearable tech with sounds that are sometimes recognizable and sometimes as mysterious as morphed water. Here’s a description of the project.

Amateur triggers sound samples with movement as means of exploring how performance creates a world for its audience on competing perceptual levels.

Dancers wear belts with an Arduino Lilypad and an Xbee module. Flex sensors scattered on joints of the body trigger sound samples using Processing. The minimalist costumes, the bare stage and even the slow push of the computer cart add a tension to the piece, which allows the sound to flourish. What does distance mean? How is this like a typical day in the life? How are people programmed? These are the questions the work brings, hopefully pushing each of us to ponder what it means to be human. A big congrats to Sam Klitsner, Dorothy Dubrule and Barry Brannum for keeping the wearable tech undercover while putting the emphasis on the movement and emotion. Hope to see more of your work in the future!

Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!