Ooots ooots ooots: Ziggybox Senses Your Ennui, Creates Dance Beats

Ziggybox from Christian Losert on Vimeo.

Christian Losert and Paul Schengber built this wild synth that uses cigarettes as triggers for some hot house beats. The system uses a camera to sense the position of various items on the surface. Add a loosie and you get a bass drum, open the cigarette box and get some high-hat. You can modify the tempo with a dial or you can just keep smoking and listening to some phat beats.

This isn’t just about staring into space at the rave, man. This whole thing is all about interfaces and interaction and how it’s much more fun to take a puff than mess with Logic Pro.

As the use of everyday objects are familiar to all, the interface serves as an open and easily approachable invitation for use. With this type of interface, where digital and physical boarders are blurred, it helps to open up a new relationship between technology and humans.
The project utilised C++ and Open Frameworks as the basic platform. Included light-sensors control the sound synthesis. Our intention is also to give
the colour arrangement a special importance and the objects on the box are arranged in order to reinforce the possibility of interaction with common objects.

via Giz