Hasta La Ideas

As we become more mobile as a whole culture, technology continues to adapt along with us. From waterproof smartphones to airplay-enabled audio systems, most every tech company worth noting is launching portable speakers to compete with category veterans like Jambox. The…

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Le musicien suédois Simon Stalhamrhe alias Small Feet, a fait appel à Oskar Wrango pour la réalisation de son dernier clip, « Rivers ». Le feu devient part intégrante de l’identité visuelle de l’individu et rend la fuite éperdu de celui-ci quasi-mystique. Une expérience poétique à découvrir dans la suite.

This kit by Royal College of Art graduate Neil Merry allows musicians to control sound and lighting effects at their gigs by slinging the microphone around or waggling their instruments about (+ movie).

Presented at the Royal College of Art graduate show in London this week, the portable Plug + Play kit includes sensors that clip onto instruments or microphone stands, controlling sound and lighting according to the performer’s movements and gestures.

One senses the proximity of the performer to the microphone, for example, while another is activated by twisting the microphone stand.

“It’s about having control over things you wouldn’t normally have control of as a performer,” says Merry, who thinks the kit could bring more engaging performances to electronic music in particular: “With electronic music you can be stuck behind a laptop so you lose that interaction, whereas this lets you control the electronic sounds in a more physical way.”

He explains that while shows at a big venue might come with a sound desk and a lighting display, “this is a kit for intimate gigs on a small stage – it’s something one person can take with them.”

All the components clip together on the back of the lamp for easy transportation. Right now the sensors feed into a control box that relays changes to the speakers and a light, but Merry hopes to make the system wireless so it would be easier to set up.

Neil Merry is graduating from Platform 17 of the Design Products course at the Royal College of Art, where the show opens to the public from 20–30 June.

Other work on display includes a mask that lets you tune your senses like a TV and wooden shoes based on furniture structures.

Other musical projects on Dezeen include a record-playing bicycle, an amplifier that only works when people link hands or touch noses and a combined glassblowing pipe and trumpet.

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Here’s some more information from Neil Merry:

PLUG + PLAY

Plug + Play is a portable toolkit for the performance of electronic or computer-based music. Traditionally, electronic music requires the performer to hunch behind a laptop or synthesiser pushing buttons and twiddling knobs, as a consequence this can the lack live visual performance and on-stage energy of a more traditional band. Using a collection of sensors and lights, Plug + Play provides a means for a more dynamic performance of electronic music by translating gestures and actions into sound and lighting effects.

Each sensor works according to a different method of interaction (Movement, Intimacy, Twist & Slam) and can be worn on the body or attached to an existing instrument. As such, a microphone stand can become a 3D music controller, a maraca a heavy bass line or a raised hand a pulsating synth wave.

My design fits within the existing architecture of a live performance and interfaces with the huge range of sounds provided through modern music software (a sort of advanced, digital equivalent of the guitar pedal). With the increased accessibility of music creation programs on laptops and tablet devices, it has never been easier to produce your own music, however there are currently very few options when it comes to performing this music live. Plug + Play can integrate electronic sounds into a live band, orchestral performance, or simply give electronic artists new ways to create sounds and music. The whole kit can be packed up and easily carried and would be particularly suitable for performance in small music venues, as well as easily integrating into a larger stage set-up, suiting both bedroom producers and more established musicians.

As vocals are a common element in many electronic tracks, I used the microphone stand as my main point of focus for this project. Already featuring as a tool for expression by many performers, each Plug and Play sensor enables this expression and physical interaction to become a central part of the music creation. The result is to turn the simple microphone stand into an instrument in its own right and offer a more tactile and emotive interaction with electronic and digital sounds.

Neil Merry is a recent graduate of Design Products course at the RCA, studying on Platform 17 which focuses on the broad world of consumer electronics and is tutored by Martin Postler and Ian Ferguson. Within my work I look to find meaningful applications of technology that bridge gaps between the physical and digital and provide new spaces for interaction and expression.

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Neil Merry appeared first on Dezeen.

Nashville may be famously known as Music City, but a new event is helping to raise the presence of visual arts in the city. Joint Project is the brainchild of independent curator Susan Sherrick and social media…

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(Photo: Seth Browarnik for Design Miami Basel)

When last we saw Kanye West, he was wandering the tulip-lined halls of the European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF). His latest appearance on the international art circuit (Gray hoodie? Check.) was at Design Miami Basel, where, in the wee hours of Thursday morning, he gave an impromptu listening party for Yeezus. The album, due out on June 18, is expected to sell 500,000 copies in its first week of release.

Some 2,000 guests (Hans Ulrich Obrist? Check.) gathered–amidst a few Rick Owens chairs–at the center of the Herzog and de Meuron-designed Hall 1 Sud at Basel’s Messeplatz to sample West’s latest, including a track produced by Daft Punk and an a capella rendition of “New Slaves,” which includes a shout-out to Alexander Wang. The decision to appear at Design Miami Basel makes perfect sense considering that West has moved on from George Condo to…Le Corbusier. In a recent interview with Jon Caramanica of The New York Times, he pointed to architecture as influencing the pared-down vibe of Yeezus:

You know, this one Corbusier lamp was like, my greatest inspiration. I lived in Paris in this loft space and recorded in my living room, and it just had the worst acoustics possible, but also the songs had to be super simple, because if you turned up some complicated sound and a track with too much bass, it’s not going to work in that space. This is earlier this year. I would go to museums and just like, the Louvre would have a furniture exhibit, and I visited it like, five times, even privately. And I would go see actual Corbusier homes in real life and just talk about, you know, why did they design it? They did like, the biggest glass panes that had ever been done. Like I say, I’m a minimalist in a rapper’s body. It’s cool to bring all those vibes and then eventually come back to Rick [Rubin], because I would always think about Def Jam.

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