Purpose:
Sim and I were interested in making an audience participant of our project voluntarily.
We knew we wanted to record data of their emotions somehow, and we knew we wanted sound. A combination of our ideas and my individual research on ITP Alumni past works (one of them had flowers that followed a body’s movement will provide link later) led us to Chuchero Plus were we envisioned people having fun moving in space and time, dragging out what their body feels.
What is Chuchero Plus:
An audio reactive speaker system that allows users to collaborate on tracks using their voice and body.
What it looks like:
The user enters the room to find a large speaker; surrounding its two cones are strips of programmable LEDs in a circular shape . A few feet away from the speaker, facing it front-on, is a marked point (disguising a weight sensor) for the user to stand on. Surrounding this point is a rectangle marked by tape on the ground to demonstrate the range of the user’s control.
What happens:
Once the user steps on the weight sensor playback of an introductory audio file begins explaining the rules of the program. They are first instructed to select an instrument (from a pre-defined list) by speaking its name. Once the program (p5.speech) recognizes an instrument name a green LED is lit and samples of that instrument being played begin. As the user moves their body within the rectangular zone the audio playback is manipulated in different ways: by speed, pitch, etc. Once the user completes. Once completed the user says “all done” to trigger another audio file which asks if the user wants to stop the program or add a collaborator. If a collaborator is added, the previous instrument sample continues to play with the effects set by the first user and another user can approach the weight sensor and select a new instrument to begin manipulating on top of the audio formed by the first user.
Non-physical resources used: