February 8, 2006

I-CubeX Sensors for Interactive Dance Performances

This morning I spoke with Axel Mulder, president of Montreal, Quebec-based Infusion Systems Ltd. Axel's company sells a series of sensors under the I-CubeX line that can be used by dancers to create interactive dance performances.

Right below, I'll explain the basics of how sensors work and how they can be incorporated into a dance performance. First, I just wanted to encourage you to visit the I-CubeX website. You'll find a lot of excellent videos that show you the characteristics of each of the sensors. And if you visit the page for the company's Starter Pack, you can watch a video of how the different components work together.

My experience has been that most technology-oriented sites do not do a very good job of explaining the technologies they offer. So it was nice to come across these video demonstrations on I-CubeX.

Sensor Illustration

Let's say you are choreographing a solo dance piece. You decide that when you tap your foot on a specific location on the stage, you want the audience to hear a pre-determined sound through the speakers.

Here is how you would use sensors and other tools to make this happen.

First, you would use the TapTile sensor. View the following page to read a description of this sensor. And then watch a video clip. Essentially, when you step on this tile, you generate an audio signal.

Second, you'll want to learn how the signal from the TapTile is converted into a desired sound that you want the audience to hear as you are dancing. To do this, it's a good idea to visit the page for the I-CubeX Starter Pack and watch a video that I also linked to above.

This video shows the components that are included in the Starter Pack. You'll find a number of sensors, a digitizer and software that communicates with the digitizer. Here's a screen shot from the video that shows how the pieces work together:

Click to view larger schematic

On the left, there is a box that represents a touch sensor - let's imagine that this sensor is our TapTile sensor that we want to step on in order to create a sound. A dancer steps on the tile and an electrical signal is automatically generated and sent to the digitizer.

The digitizer coverts the electrical signal to digital format - specifically, the electrical signal is converted to what is called MIDI data. MIDI is a universal language that allows musical instruments to communicate with each other and with computer devices. Think of MIDI as a common language that everybody at a conference agrees to speak. Let's say you're at an event with attendees from around the world. It's easier for everybody to communicate and understand each other if they speak a single language at the conference. That's what MIDI is - a common language, in digital format, that musical instruments and computers "speak" in order to exchange data about musical sounds.

The digitizer can be programmed by the software that comes with the Starter Pack to make a specific sound every time the dancer steps on the TapTile. You could get fancier and create different sounds based upon the amount of pressure that is placed on the tile - but let's keep it simple for now. When a dancer taps on the tile the digitizer creates a MIDI message to play the "Middle C" sound on a keyboard.

Then, continuing to follow the above diagram, we now have a musical sound in MIDI format (play "Middle C") that is going to be sent to your computer. You'll see a box in between the digitizer and the computer that reads "MIDI-USB adapter." This device may be needed so that your computer can "understand" the contents of the MIDI message.

Then the MIDI instruction reaches your computer. At this point, you need to use a software program that is not provided by Infusion Systems. What artists often do is use a graphical programming environment such as Max/MSP from Cycling '74. With Max/MSP you can capture the MIDI instruction "Play Middle C" and instruct the sound system to play this sound through the speakers for the audience to hear.

This is actually overkill for software programs such as Max/MSP - I just wanted to explain how the process works. You can do all types of fancy programming with Max/MSP that I'll write about in the near future.

A simpler solution is to connect the digitizer directly to a synthesizer that would then play the "Middle C" sound on the speakers. You can think of a synthesizer as a digital keyboard that can play MIDI messages.

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