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OROBORO
A Collaborative
Musical Controller with Interpersonal Haptic Feedback
Created by Jen Carlile and Bjoern Hartmann |
| OROBORO
is a novel collaborative controller which focuses on musical performance
as social experience by exploring synchronized actions of two musicians
operating a single instrument. Each performer uses two paddle mechanisms
– one for hand orientation sensing and one for servo-motor actuated
feedback. We introduce a haptic mirror in which the movement of one performer’s
sensed hand is used to induce movement of the partner’s actuated
hand and vice versa. |
|
from
oroborous, the serpent that eats its own tail |
|
Atmel
Mega 128 with
Procyon
MotorDriver V1.0 |
Outside
the sphere of computer music, in the physical world, the constraints of
human anatomy limit the complexity of expression of any single musical instrument.
A natural way to add richness to musical performance is for musicians to
assemble in groups, bands, combos, ensembles or orchestras. In these communal
performances, the interpersonal dynamics between musicians are responsible
for much of the fascinating richness and subtlety of the music. Alas, all
too often recent software tools have ignored this important interpersonal
component of musicianship by concentrating solely on the single-performer,
single-computer paradigm. Reconnecting to communal practices, we focus on
collaborative controllers for computer music which require contributions
from multiple musicians. By exploring musical space together, the performance
itself can serve as a potent medium for interpersonal communication. Toward
this end we have built OROBORO – a music controller that connects
two players sonically and haptically. |
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Using
a mirror metaphor, two musicians face each other across a table. On each
side of the table two paddle mechanisms are placed that support the performers’
hands. The paddles are used to record/induce movement in the following way:
For each performer, the right hand is sensed. Movement and finger pressure
are recorded and sent to a PureData (Pd) patch for sound synthesis and sample
playback control. From the point of view of the musician, this is her active
hand. The left hand is actuated, or passive from the performer’s perspective.
Its cradle mechanism is equipped with positioning motors that relay the
orientation of the other performer’s active hand. |
| Through
this haptic mirror, performers are more deeply aware of what their partner
is doing – they can see, hear and feel the collaborative effort. We
consciously separated sensing and actuation into separate hands to avoid
a haptic tug of war between the performers. We rely on each performer to
integrate incoming and outgoing signals mentally. Sensor data from both
performers’ active hands is combined to provide control for sound
synthesis control. For left handed musicians, the arrangement of controllers
can be swapped. |
