Mdambruc-LookingOutwards04

http://www.machina.cc/pages/midi-jackethttp://

Video of how jacket responds to motion with sound

Machina’s MIDI Jacket (2013)

Machina’s MIDI jacket first caught my attention because it is ultimately a marriage of three things – sound, motion and art. I consider the art to be created through the dancing, as well as the sound that is created through motion. The MIDI jacket is essentially a piece of apparel that creates sounds based off your movements with the aids of an altimeter (measures the distance between your hand and the ground), a magnetometer (compass-like sensor), a gyroscope and an accelerometer (change pitch frequencies based on speed). I admire this project because the wearer is able to seamlessly create a multimedia art form simply through wearing a jacket. I also admire this project because it allows anyone to be an artist – whether they can dance or not, the wearer is able to make art. In the jacket there is an electronic board and a Bluetooth module. The electronic board handles data sensing and passes the data to the Bluetooth module, which then is passed on to a companion app. In the app the data is converted to MIDI. The algorithms that created this work are available through the website as a software development kit. The artistic sensibilities of creators Stephany Jeanaina and Antonio Machina were to “design a clothing brand people could buy, but feel as if they’re buying an electronic gadget.”  and to answer the question, “What sound do your moves create?”.