The Xth Sense - Making Your Own Biophysical Sensor

Cost: Regular: $280, Members & Students (with ID): $250 (+ $40 Materials Cost)
Please bring the $40 for the materials cost in cash to the workshop!
The workshop is limited to 10 people.

The workshop offers an hands-on experience and both theoretical and practical training in gestural control of music and live video, deploying the Xth Sense (XS), a brand-new, biophysical, free and open technology. The XS was recently awarded the first prize in the Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition (Georgia Tech, US 2012) as the “world’s most innovative new musical instrument”. Participants build their own XS biosensor and learn how to generate interactive music and control live videos using the muscle sounds of their bodies.

Developed by the workshop teacher Marco Donnarumma within a research project at The University of Edinburgh, XS is a framework for the application of muscle sounds to the biophysical generation and control of music. It consists of a low cost, DIY biosensing wearable device and an Open Source based software for capture, analysis and audio processing of biological sounds of the body (Pure Data-based).

Participants will be free to keep the XS biosensors they built, and the related software for their own use.

Muscle sounds are captured in real time and used both as sonic source material and control values for audio and video, enabling the performer to control the computer simply with his body and kinetic energy. Forget your mice, MIDI controllers, you will not even need to look at your laptop anymore.

The XS biosensor was designed to be easily implemented by anyone, no previous experience in electronics is required. The applications of the Xth Sense technology are manifold: from complex gestural control of audio and video sampling and synthesis, through biophysical generation of music and sounds, to kinetic control of real time digital processing of traditional musical instruments, control of external vjing software and more.

For more information about the method, itinerary, and bios on the artist, click on the link to the website