Springy spandex is main ingredient in interactive performance concept
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Aaron Sherwood and Mike Pallison have created a performance membrane called Firewall, where pressing into a sheet of spandex affects the delivery of audio and visuals
Three feet behind the stretched spandex is a Kinect motion sensing system, with an Epson projector behind that
An Arduino Uno microcontroller connected to a toggle switch is attached to a metal pole frame, allowing the user to switch between two operating modes
Programming for Firewall was done in Processing and Max/MSP
Aaron Sherwood lines everything up in preparation for user testing
In its idle state, Firewall plays no music and sports no visuals
As a user presses into the spandex, the midi starts to be triggered and increases in speed and velocity the farther the spandex is pressed
The spandex sheet is mounted within a wooden frame, which hangs from a metal pole frame with a Kinect and an Epson projector positioned behind
The fire-like visuals react to the user's touch and press
The piano sounds are accompanied by fire-like visuals designed by Mike Pallison in the Processing open source programming environment
All sounds are pumped out through two studio monitors sat behind the spandex frame
Aaron Sherwood designed a second set of visuals to accompany a more aggressive digital music sample
Firewall's designers, Aaron Sherwood and Mike Pallison
Article Summary
Invented in 1959, the extremely elastic synthetic fiber spandex can be found in cycling shorts and other figure-hugging sportswear. It's also made its way into home furnishings and served as a leave-nothing-to-the-imagination 70s rock god favorite. Now, it has well-and-truly entered the digital age with the creation of Firewall, an interactive performance wall that alters the speed, volume or intensity of music in response to a user pressing into its membrane, while also showing off some eye-popping, user-reactive visuals.
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