DJStation, step by step introduction

DJStation is an interactive and audiovisual installation based on a tangible user interface with fiducial tracking. It was created by CAVI/Digital Urban Living in 2010 for the Digital Natives exhibition in Århus, Denmark.

It allows the user to interact with the musical universe of the seven digital natives involved in the project, while getting first hand experience with the remix and mash-up concepts that are hallmarks of the digital native generation.

Each of the natives is represented in the installation by a cube (the ones with visible fiducial markers) which can play musical loops when placed on the table surface. A cube has six sides, and each side plays a unique loop that the native in question has co-produced - thus the cube becomes a representation of that specific person's musical taste. Flipping the cube to a new side plays a new loop, and rotating the cube controls the volume of the loop.

The coloured cubes represent audio effects that can be applied to the musical loops. Each coloured cube contains a unique effect, and the closer it is to a loop cube, the more of the effect is applied to that loop (for example: The closer the reverb cube is to a loop, the more reverb is applied to that loop). Rotating a coloured cube controls its effect parameters (changing the room size of a reverb or the amount of feedback of a delay effect, for example).

By placing more musical cubes on the table and applying effects to them dynamically with the effect cubes, the user can combine and alter loops and create complex mash-ups. And in addition to this, images that the involved digital natives have carefully selected will gather around the respective musical cubes on the table surface and interact with the images from the other cubes, creating an experience that allows you to explore and interact with the audiovisual universe of digital natives.

DJStation uses reacTIVision for fiducial tracking, Ableton Live for audio processing and Unity for visuals - and is inspired by the Reactable.


http://www.digital-natives.dk
http://www.cavi.dk
http://www.digitalurbanliving.dk

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"A digital native is a person for whom digital technologies already existed when they were born, and hence has grown up with digital technology such as computers, the Internet, mobile phones and MP3s".

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::CREDITS::

DESIGN, VISUALS, PROGRAMMING & SOUND
-Janne Hyldgaard
-Christoffer Krogsdal
-Rasmus Bendtsen
-Janus Novak
-Sune Hede
-Lasse Damgaard
-Kasper Aae

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
-Peter Friis
-Rasmus Enø Pedersen
-Janus Bager Kristensen
-Rolf Bagge

DIGITAL NATIVES
-Troels Peter Jessen
-Metha Ras-Nordentoft
-Johan Sundwall
-Lil Wachmann
-Ida Emile Sabro
-Martin von Bach
-Anne K. Flygaard

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• DJStation
• audiovisual
• installation
• interaction
• music
• tangible user interface
• TUI
• interactive table
• digital natives
• fiducial tracking
• mash-up
• remix
• Ableton Live
• reacTIVision
• Unity
• CAVI
• Digital Urban Living
• University of Aarhus
• interactive museum
• anthropology

[cavidk]

@farrioo: All the assets are in a database. It was a design choice in order to be able to keep a certain level of aesthetic quality. The latest iteration of the installation, RADARTABLE, takes it to the next level by using music loops composed by the electronic artist Henrik Munch. Videos of it will be up soon - keep an eye on our channel.

[farrloo]

Wow thats really great, this would be the kind of installation that would go down a bomb at electric picnic. Are all the images and music loops in a data base, or can you pull stuff in from the web?

[poisondart]

Simply amazing. This should probably be tested out at the Roskilde Festival or the likes to get the idea out to the people.