Just over a year ago, Kris’s brother sent him a link to this video. Alberta landscapes have all kinds of patterns–from the rise and fall of the Rockies to fenceposts and telephone poles–so Kris was inspired to see if he could find a way to get  visitors would “play” the Albertan landscape.

V1: Trace the Landscape

Eugene (our in-house electronics genius) attached capacitive sensors to a MIDI board from a toy piano. Running your finger over the sensors played notes—the higher on the sheet the higher the note.

Kris printed out evocative pictures of Alberta and invited visitors to put them on the sensors and trace them, triggering sounds. Some visitors looked through and commented on the pictures, and some put them on the panel and touched them. But no one traced the landscapes or compared their sounds.

Maybe capacitive sensors were too mysterious for people to use for a non-intuitive activity.

V2: What if we reveal the technology? And make it sounds better?

Eugene modified the MIDI board to play a pentatonic scale (so tracing would make musical sounds) and Kris put the pictures next to the sensors (so the technology would be less hidden). He drew a hand on the sensor panel to cue people to touch it. Alas—they placed their hands on the outline instead of using a fingertip to trace.

He also tried incorporating MMMTSSS (a super-intuitive music program from the MIT Media Lab), but then pretty much everyone used MMMTSSS.

V3: What if we ditch the technology?

Kris made linocut stamps of trees, telephone poles, buildings and other features. He played music with a strong beat and encouraged people to stamp a landscape as they marched around a table covered with newsprint.

Once they got into it, they had fun with this set-up. But they either marched and stamped, or looked at the landscapes (some drew themselves into the picture), and still no one connected the sounds to the places.

Coincidentally, Kris is trying a new digital version this week–watch for his post on how it works.

–Katherine

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