physical sequencer

The Physical Sequencer: a grid-based, human-scale interface for musical expression

The spread of powerful laptops have made live computer music a common experience in
bars, night clubs, galleries, and beyond, but the great majority is not an overtly physical experience, as is found in more traditional models of musical performance. The laptop performance paradigm can be criticised on two grounds: Firstly, from the perspective of the performer, that the kinds of micro-gestures fostered by the most common human-computer interfaces only allow for a fraction of the gesture range of the human body. Secondly, that, as un-embodied performance reveals so little as to how the music is being made, something important has also been lost from a musical appreciation perspective.

It is not surprising, then, that for a significant number of performers, there is something appealing about physical exertion in creating a sound or playing an instrument. At the heart of the Physical Sequencer is a human-scale array of 56 proximity sensors arranged in an 7x8 grid. These detect the performer's motions, transforming them via software mapping into music. In doing so, computer music-making is itself transformed, into an embodied practice that shares common ground with dance and theatre.

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