from Synthetic Times - Media Art China 2008

OP_ERA: Sonic Dimension is an immersive and interactive installation designed as a music box.

The box is a black, open cube (three walls of 3x3m each) filled with hundreds of visually identical violin-like strings. Tuned with the specific tension, each virtual string vibrates with a visual-sound frequency (light and sound waves) that varies according to its relative position and mode of interaction.

In OP_ERA: sonic dimension there are two modes of interaction. In the first case, the input interface is a set of microphones that collect the user’s sounds. When a microphone picks up a sound, the software analyses, filters and converts it into equivalent visual outputs, frequencies vibrating as strings.

In the second case, the input interface is an array of sensors. Used to detect the user’s position this interface allows the system to interpret any action as a gravitational force. For example, when the user points to a string set, the action not only vibrates the selected strings, but it also changes the shape of space-time.

The aim of this project is to research the geometry of sonic spaces and to develop sonic interfaces.

Programming: Victor Gomes
Support: ATOS, Industrial Automation Ltd. - CLP (hardware and software)
Biography

Daniela Kutschat Hanns
www.danielakutschat.com
(* 1964) is an artist and body-space and digital systems researcher. She develops multisensorial interfaces and interactive environments and investigates adaptative and behavior controlled systems. Doctor in Arts [Escola de Comunicações e Artes / Universidade de São Paulo , 2002], she is linked to the Planetary Collegium and to the Emergent Processes Research Group- CNPQ, Brazil. Presently she is a Professor in the Master of Design Program at Centro Universitário SENAC, São Paulo, Brazil.

Rejane Cantoni
www.rejanecantoni.com
is an artist and new technologies researcher who develops human-machine interfaces within immersive interactive environments. She is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Program on Film, Radio and TV at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. She holds a Ph.D. and Master in Communication and Semiotics from the Catholic University of São Paulo, Brazil and a Master from the Program of Études Supérieures des Systèmes d'Information from Geneva University, Switzerland. She was assistant dean and professor of the Mathematics, Physics and Technology Faculty of Catholic University of São Paulo.