The Shadow Instrument @ (re)Actor3

Last week Samer Abdallah, Adam Stark, and Kurt Jacobson of the Presents crew went up to Liverpool for the HCI Conference and (re)Actor3. We were intending to do another installation of the Giant Instrument but there was some miss communication about the lighting and we didn't have anything that would do a focused beam. So we came up with the Shadow Instrument. A red wash is cast from behind the participant. By moving her body, the participant moves her shadow in and out of the white markers on the floor. This triggers sounds on the instrument. This approach worked really well - shadows have caused us problems in some of our past efforts, but by embracing the shadow and using it as our primary medium we were able to create a system that was responsive, accurate, and intuitive. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. Also note that Steve Welburn made some nice upgrades on the software side of things. We can now access loads of patches and presets including some really fun arpeggiated synths. While playing the Shadow Instrument one over stimulated Liverpudlian even exclaimed, "Oi! I'm the Chemical Brothers!" Thanks to Sean Anderson for the video. More pics coming soon... Adam, Samer, and Kurt ponder the implications of Giant Instrument 3 the Shadow Master...