Movement Meets Material
An Improvisational approach to Design
How can we implement the matter of corporeality within a musical instrument and how do we adress movement and gesture properly within the design process, incorporating its elements right from the beginning?
Amelie Hinrichsens research which resulted in two Instrument Prototypes translated an improvisation practice stemming from contemporary dance into the design process. An acoustic musician, an experimental electronic musician and a contemporary dancer started out to improvise with each other equipped with three different kinds of material provided by the designer. Over the course of four improvisation sessions observations and personal interpretations of each session by the designer shaped the visual and sonic design of mock-ups and later more refined instrument prototypes.
The whole process was accompanied and analyzed in an ethnographic manner by Johanna Schindler.
Learn more about the process here.
BLOONEY
Blooney is one out of two instrument prototypes resulting from an artistic research which took place over the course of 4 improvisation sessions during 9 months.
Blooney combines digital sound generation with direct acoustic sound signals. It consists of an inflatable structure filled with little styrofoam balls, two flex sensors on the outside of this structure and a microphone inside. The handpiece combines two potentiometers, an xy joystick and two buttons. Blooneys sonic output mainly focuses on soundscapes and textures through delays, loops and overdubs of a combination of dry and filtered signals.
PIPER
Piper is the second instrument prototype resulting from the above mentioned research process. It is based on improvisation sessions with cardboard tubes.
Piper is a telescope-like object consisting of three tubes put together inside one another. It is equipped with a piezo element, a microphone, a button, two pressure, a light sensor and a microphone to amplify further activities such as blowing and swinging.
Just like Blooney Piper‘s musical output focuses on sonic structures
with similar control mechanisms.
pictures by Till Bovermann and Amelie Hinrichsen