Paper Reading #8: Shadows no. 4: belly dance and interactive electroacoustic musical performance

Comments
Evin Schuchardt - http://csce436spring2011.blogspot.com/2011/02/paper-reading-8-shadows-no-4-belly.html
Vince Kocks - http://vincehci.blogspot.com/2011/02/paper-reading-8-exploring-mobile.html

Reference Information
Title: Shadows no. 4: belly dance and interactive electroacoustic musical performance
Authors: Aurie Y. Hsu, Steven T. Kemper
Presentation Venue: CHI 2010: 28th ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems; April 10-15, 2010; Atlanta, GA, USA

Summary
This paper discusses how the two authors developed an interactive system that incorporates both movement and music. For their research they have a belly dancer perform while wearing sensors that capture the dancer’s motions and produce music.

Image taken from the video of the performance at the conference

Their system is made up of a 2-inch diameter disc called LilyPad Arduino sewn to the fabric with insulated wire. As the dancer performs, the LilyPad takes in the motion data through different sensors and wirelessly sends it to a computer as serial data. The computer processes the data through a visual programming environment called Max, which maps the data to audio processing control parameters such as harmonization and playback speed. 

Discussion
First, a video performance from the conference can be found here: http://www.chi2010.org/attending/video/file184-3.mov

After watching the video, I have to say this is actually pretty neat, like orchestrating your own music through dancing. I also like the fact that they found a way to hide the sensor without degrading its performance. The authors also included some information about their earlier tests with a conductive thread that broke or shorted out when used to sew the disc to the clothing.

All in all the paper was an interesting one, but a little short. As for future work, they mention their plans to improve the sensor network further and incorporate other sensors like motion capture and biosensors to add further interaction. I’m kind of curious to see if they can make several systems that would work in harmony so that several dancers could perform together and make more complex-sounding music.