A New Audio-Visual Gestural Instrument for Unlocking Creativity
Alon Ilsar, Matthew Hughes · 2020
The AirSticks are an audio-visual gestural instrument de- signed to inspire the improvisation and performance of real- time explorative electronic music through subtle and not-so- subtle physical movement. The instrument has been used professionally across the world. In doing so the designers have created hundreds of mappings of movement to sound, along with a real-time visualisation system that uses the same movement data from handheld motion controllers to unify the sound, graphics and movement. The instrument has shown to have a broad appeal beyond professional practice, which has led to hands-on demos with children through to older people. We invite visitors, for the first time, to play not only with the AirSticks, but also with the latest iteration of our audio-visual system, to inspire new collaborations in the field of computer-human interaction. We argue that we need more new tools to unlock people's creativity through moving, listening and music making.