Weekend Assignment

For my weekend assignment I chose to go to Archer Gallery and watch Steve Gibson perform his “Virtual DJ”. There is seriously only one word I can use to describe it: Awesome. Using beats, melodies, and other sounds he’s pre-recorded Gibson is able to perform music in tons of different ways. He is able to do this by using a very intuitive set up that I’ve never heard of before. His rig consists of four infrared cameras, two projectors, two infrared discs, and a bunch of computers and software. The infrared cameras are set up in a square with the two projectors on the outer edges of the square. This combination of technology creates an infrared reading “grid” that then reads the discs Gibson holds in his hands.

When Gibson steps into the “grid” the cameras read the discs, then send that to the computers that then send the info to the projectors. Not all that remarkable at first but then you realize that the sounds change depending on where he is in the “grid” and not just the types of sounds but how fast they play and the note that they’re played in. It’s an entertaining event to watch. Gibson really gets into it and gives it his all. Watching him make music on the fly I couldn’t help but wonder how this could be implemented into other forms of entertainment.

Seeing how physical the process of playing the music was the first thing that popped into my head is how well it would work as a form of exercise. Almost everyone listens to music as they exercise but what if they actually made the music while exercising? Or how about using it as an input device for your computer? I couldn’t help but think of the movie “Minority Report” when Tom Cruise puts on a couple of gloves and starts using his computer by manipulating a hologram. It’s definitely interesting to see where they take this type of input device in the future and hopefully we’ll start to see other people take an interest in this input device as well.