To say the least, my project went through a few iterations.

What started as a sound generating glove mechanism turned into a gestural puppet controller.

Video (that will be replaced with better video shortly):

 

Idea genesis:

This project began with my fascination with gestural technology. Artists like Laetitia Sonami have been making waves in the world of unlikely sound generation. Sonami’s project “Lady’s Glove” features a sound generating glove that is controlled by finger movement. The result is a cohesive performance in which Sonami combines simple finger flexion with an array of sound effects.

My objective was to do something similar, but instead of embedding the glove with an arsenal of noise, I was more interested in creating a simple sound gradient so that the angle of flexion for each finger was calculated.

How did that turn out?

Not exactly what I described.

Technologies used.

  1. Photon – I started with a photon connected to an electret microphone, but when we moved onto assignment part two, I realized I wanted to do more in the land or MaxMSP to create visualizations, and, unfortunately, Photon and MaxMSP are not compatible.
  2. Vibration motors were connected to each finger so when they moved, the motor would buzz against the metal structure I welded for the glove
  3. Arduino – after getting rid of the photon I switched to an Arduino that then interfaced with MaxMSP via Maxuino, but then the electret microphones began to act adversely with the vibration motor. Whether or not the motor was buzzing against the metal, it was impossible to get a clear signal
  4. Bend sensors – in the end, I resorted to bend sensors that were put in place of the vibrating motors. Now, when a finger moves, the bend sensor sends a signal to MaxMSP

Photos:

coming soon!!!

Gist Link to Max Patch:

https://gist.github.com/LValley/e4b7d09429ce168d6ad0.js

Inspiration Links:

Lady’s Glove

http://sonami.net/ladys-glove/

(and very loosely) Stelarc’s third hand:

http://stelarc.org/?catID=20265

After thoughts:

While this project was somewhat of a wild ride, I am glad that I ended up with a functioning project that made sense.

In the future; definitely, more finite planning.