For our DAT201 project we've been asked to prepare a performative piece for an exhibition towards the end of the year. I've already started research for the essay exploring technology and art in practice, in which I chose to explore the relationship between music and technology and the evolution of interaction when producing music.

I started thinking about how I could use a new, emerging technology to manipulate sounds. My thoughts shot directly to a synthesizer and how it allows you to alter/generate sounds. Effects such as pitch, pass filters, cutoff, and delay could all be controlled with a numerical value.

I then started thinking of ways that I could generate those values. I wanted to come up with something that would be effective in an exhibition space and could allow multiple users. Last year we had the chance to play around with some Microsoft Kinects, an accessory originally designed for use with the Xbox 360 but was quickly adopted by hackers and modders. I could use this as an input. The Kinect is often used for face-on gesture detection often suited towards a single user, though rarely from a top-down view. By using the camera for an overview we can detect a number of different variables; number of people in view, travelling patterns, placement within the view area, 'gestures' and more. I feel like this is something that could be quite interesting to explore.