My close friend and composer invited me to the Issue Project Room today, to catch the tail end of the Music & Technology Month. All I knew was that there will be a lady by the name of Laetitia Sonami with a midi-wired glove as her instrument. So futuristic, I thought...The black glove was covered in thin colorful wires, and with each hand gesture, it triggered different sound samples.
I was mesmerized by Laetitia's performance. She did two pieces: a musical one and a narrative. The seminal research on such "data gloves" was done in 1980s. Laetitia Sonami has been composing, performing music and doing sound installation art with her glove for a few decades now. Describing the music she performed isn't easy with words. It was like a dance of hands and fingers; a sign-language that produced sounds of birds, water, streets, voices, layers and layers of audio clips; a beautiful sound collage. Here's a few drawings that might do a better job of describing.
I am going to look for more information on Laetitia and her glove-it's just so interesting to me...
I have never heard of this before----how interesting and your drawings of this are mesmerizing--I think I was there!
ReplyDeletewow, these are fascinating!
ReplyDeleteAudrey, Donna, thanks!
ReplyDeleteMe neither, Donna! Although my composer friend Sasha knew about this.
There's crazier stuff out there right now-playing music with brainwaves. That deserves a separate blog post.
She looks like she has angel wings in the first one! Beautiful!
ReplyDeleteinteresting update, 4 years later: http://www.dezeen.com/2014/03/31/imogen-heap-gloves-mini-frontiers-movie/
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