The project is to develop a new textile for sensorial and musical interaction. Textile which has a soft and sensorial stimulation qualities,  in combination with transparency to transmit light and roughness to handle the rough use. In addition the textile has to have the ability to embed electronics into the textile.

We have worked from different angles, providing aesthetically and sensorial qualities by exploring combinations of yarn like cotton, wool, viscose, polyamid, polyester to high tech yarns like mono filament, pemotec and thermoformable yarns.

We have worked with different structures/patterns to embedd the technology like light, sensors, actuators and wires.

We have worked with different forms of knitting techniques from jacquard knitting to complex and simpler forms of tubular structures.

We have explored different forms of knitting machines from tubular machines to complex flat beds.

We have worked in different scales from many small samples to larger moch-ups and prototypes to be.

The title of Birgitta and Anders-Petters paper is “Embodied and Distributed Parallel DJing” and focuses on the innovative potential of including people with special needs when designing and creating cultural artifacts and activities. In the paper they argue that “…because of the users’ extreme demands and rich contribution, we ended up creating both a new genre of musical instruments and a new art form. We call this new art form Embodied and Distributed Parallel DJing, and the new genre of instruments for  Empowering Multi-Sensorial Things.” Access the Proceedings and paper here.

Here is a video that demonstrate the new practice of Embodied Parallel DJing, where Anders and Birgitta are using their whole body when cutting, scratching (DJing) together in parallel with Polly Ocean and Polly Planet on familiar music tunes that they choose with the RFID-tagged objects.

At 18.00 on Tuesday April 14th is the opening of the first public exhibition of Polly World at Kunst og Designhall HiOA (old Art Academy in St. Olavgate 32).  Polly World will also be open for visitors from 16.00 to 19.00 on Wednesday April 15, Thursday April 16 and Friday April as part of the conference “Aesthetics and Children with Special Needs“.

During the conference both RHYME member Karette Stænseth, Anders-Petter Anderssson and Birgitta Cappelen will make presentations/talks about different perspectives on RHYME, related to the conference theme.

In his presentation Andersson argues that music is not longer only the sound object, instrument or piece of art, but the services around it. These are services in the form of actors with characters that behave coherent as they answer back musically, take initiative and develop over time. With perspectives from drama, game theory, actor-network-theory as well as from learning theories on motivation, Andersson explores two design cases from RHYME.

MusicalFieldsForever (RHYME development team Fredrik, Birgitta and Anders-Petter) were invited to exhibit at the Musicmakers event in Berlin 14. September 2012. At the event we made and staged an installation version of Reflect. Very many people came and tested and experienced Reflect, which gave us invaluable input.
Here are some photos of Reflect at the event.

          
Video illustrations of the prototype from Vimeo

Peter Kirn wrote about it on his blogg createdigitalmusic.com

      
      
Further we are working on the mobile hardware platform to offer all tangible interaction forms we like to include, based on smart phone technology. First we are rebuilding our iDevice  breakout card to offer a joint battery solution and other interaction forms than we had in the first version. (We used the first iDevice card in Wave Orange and in all student projects fall 2011.) Up to now we have developed 4 different mobile plattforms that we call iDevice 1.0, iDevice 1.1, iDevice 1.5, jDevice and kDevice.
Further we are exploring and testing other platforms on the market, where there are many. But designing social, empowering, tangible, musical interaction (musicking) are very demanding on many levels, so we struggle with many limitations. We are also exploring alternative projection solutions that are more suitable in a home.

      

Three Student Projects from the “Musical Interaction and e-textile” course this fall were exhibited at the yearly AHO WORKS exhibition. The three projects were Candy Mountain Express, Hysj and Slenduro. All photos Stian K. Ruud.
   

During the empirical studies of ORFI at Haug School this spring, many wishes and requirements were proposed and formulated. The music and health professionals wanted the sound source to be close to the interaction place, similar to how acoustic instruments work. For interactive objects, it means to place the input sensors close to the speakers. This is a complex design challenge regarding wireless objects, object size and weight, sensor qualities, sound quality and wireless sound transmission. These are some of the reasons for building future prototypes on Smartphone technologies, since they can offer a very compact package of wireless technology, sensors, battery and sound transmission. Similarly, regarding lighting, we wanted a closeness between input sensors and light. Further we also wanted a sensor that was easier to interact with than the bending sensors we have in ORFI. This is a design challenge, regarding the transparent (illuminating) material, tactility and desirable qualities of the sensors: How to design sensors that motivate the user to interact easy in many ways over long time?

Bellow you can see some pictures of the designs created to try to reach these goals. We have developed 3 kinds of soft textile, illuminating touch sensors based on different sensor technologies, that offer a variety of sensory and sensual qualities. We have created shapes that can be used alone and together with two or more people to create a physical, sensory and socially shared experience. This experiences will be presented at the Ambience11 conference in november. Further we have explored new forms of cross-media collaborative interaction, combinig musical interaction, and visual interaction with camera and projection.

Design of new shapes and textures:

Exploring new shapes for musical interaction:

New designs for sensory and musical experiences:

Exploring new forms of cross-media interaction:

Bill Verplank, the man who developed the graphical user interface (GUI), the mouse and the term “Interaction design”, interacted with ORFI at the NIME conference. Ha seemed very pleased with the tactile interface and the advanced musical possibilities of ORFI. During NIME, ORFI and the RHYME project was also presented and discussed with most of the participants in the NIME community, the international community of the world working with musical interfaces.