Artist James Alliban sends his mobile app Konstruct, which translates speaking, singing, whistling, and blowing into generative three-dimensional forms, then maps them to an augmented reality marker. It’s vocal improvisatory art. A version is planned for iPad 2, which seems appropriate – the tablet form factor becomes a canvas.
It looks like great fun to play with, and promises options for visual settings as well as the ability to save. My only question is whether the AR tag is really essential, or if the app could simply use location and orientation sensors on the mobile device. I imagine it depends on how it’s used – AR tags could make the “art” item (one work) associated with a specific location in space.
This work reminds me at least in part of another voice-to-visual piece, the landmark Messa di Voce by Golan Levin, Jaap Blonk, Joan La Barbara, Zach Lieberman. (Video below) But that’s not to say that somehow that team, talented as they were, exhausted the possibilities of vocal input. (That’s it. The voice is totally over. I’m taking a vow of silence and off to find something new.)
No, in fact, I’d love to see more pieces make use of the microphone as input. (Ironically, one of the few players who did that have been Nintendo, but they’ve hardly drained the medium dry, either.)
So, hook up that microphone and try it as an input – and let us know how it goes.
Konstruct app site:
http://apps.augmatic.co.uk/konstruct
Blog post:
http://jamesalliban.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/konstruct-ar-iphone-app/