The Music Room (2013)

The Music Room is an interactive installation where pairs of visitors can intuitively direct the emotional character of music by means of their movements in a room. The music, automatically generated by an algorithmic composer, is modulated with respect to pleasantness and intensity, attributes that are communicated by the visitors by means of their distance and speed. The Music Room combines emotions and movements by providing a space where visitors can compose music by expressing emotions through movements. It is experienced by couple of people that, moving throughout a private room, provide information about the emotionality of the music they wish to create. In order to communicate these factors, participants have to interact with each other: the distance between them maps the pleasantness of the music, while their speed influences the intensity. A vision tracking system acquires this proxemics information, which is then converted into emotional cues and finally passed to the music engine. The music is composed in real time by Robin, an algorithmic composer that generates tonal classical music. The algorithmic nature of the composition, combined with the two parameters of interaction (i.e. distance and speed), allows for a broad range of original musical combinations and requires no musical expertise.

Year: 2012-14

Role: ideation, conceptual design, algorithmic composition, research

Collaborators: Raul Masu, Paolo Rota, Antonella De Angeli

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Exhibitions: