Air-Guitar Control of Interactive Rhythmic Robots

This installation explores expressive bodily control of a collective of rhythmic robots. Visitors are invited to wear muscle-sensors on their arms and perform ¡®air-guitar¡¯-like gestures: strumming, moving their fretting arm and fingers, and tapping their foot. The robots each independently generate some rhythms. They synchronize with each other and with the human performer in a way that is inspired by biological rhythms. Although each robot is fully autonomous, the overall music played by the ensemble is influenced by metaphors associated with the gestures of the human performer. For example, more strumming creates more dense music