I am an interactive audio enthusiast, exploring the role that sound can play as a tool in the interactive designer’s tool chest. I have presented my work at O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology Conference and the Emerging Telephony Conference, and have spoken about podcasting at the Grassroots Media Conference. I am currently working as Media Technology Developer at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Listed below are recent projects.
Sonic Body Pong is based on Atari's classic video game Pong, and takes place in real space, with the players using their bodies as paddles. The ball is experienced by the players purely through spatialized sound. Featured at the 2006 Come Out and Play Festival and presented at the 2007 O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference.
(Geo) Phone Tag is a participatory online sound map that uses the ubiquitous telephone as an input device. Users tag locations on the map with messages; the result is an alternative map made up of stories and sounds. Next steps are to make the map interface accessible on a mobile phone, so you can hear what others have to say about your location when you are out and about.
Today audio tends to be a neglected medium, but it hasn't always been that way. In the days before writing, before the eye had achieved its current role as the dominant sensory organ, the world was probably perceived as a very different place. History and other narratives were passed down orally; in the night the ears warned of danger when the eyes were useless.
To cope with the constant barrage of noise in the modern urban soundscape, we filter out the environment by taking measures ranging from wearing headphones or earplugs to noise abatement legislation. As a result, we have begun to disregard most of the sounds we hear because we have forgotten how to use our ears for receiving information about our environment.
In response, I have produced a series of projects that reflect on the lost art of using the ear as a tool for wayfinding.
Fermata is auditory calendar software for the visually impaired. The goal is to provide quick access to calendar data using sound, and can therefore be useful for sighted users with the trend of ever-decreasing mobile phone screen sizes. Fermata was presented at the Microsoft Design Expo competion in July 2005, where it won the award for Best Concept, and at the 2006 O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference.
spinCycle is a turntable that allows you to arrange and play colors visually and musically. It was featured in a performance on May 4th, 2005 at Tonic in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. spinCycle will presented in the poster section at the New Interfaces for Musical Expression Conference at IRCAM - Centre Pompidou in June 2006.
Constellation is an urban tapestry of information that gives the vision-impaired easier access to location-based services. With Constellation, all pedestrians--not just the visually impaired--can automatically tell their mobile phones their current location without worrying about spelling or ambiguity. From there, the phone is free to work with any of dozens of location-based services to get directions, find nearby places, call merchants...anything.
Sound-Off is an audio community bulletin board on the web in which registered users can post and share audio clips. Think of it as a Flickr service for audio files. Sound-Off was used in Interactive Telecommunication Program's Spring Show 2005 to collect comments about the projects on display and provide them as feedback for the participants.
Sonictroller is a physical interface that allows the user to control video games with musical instruments. Sonictroller was presented in the demo section of the 2005 New Interfaces for Musical Expression Conference in Vancouver. Co-designer David Hindman is using the Sonictroller as a performance tool. His latest piece is entitled "Modal Kombat".
