title: mechanical metronom
type: live audiovisual composition for custom made haptic faders
year: June 2013
author/composer:Alexandros Kontogeorgakopoulos
first performance: Arcade Cardiff Gallery, Cardiff UK, May 2013
Metronom, which stands for metronome in Welsh, is a live audiovisual composition for a custom designed haptic interface. The interface consist of four haptic faders, and a digitally fabricated transparent acrylic structure, etched and cut according to the requirements of the music and the visual content. The performer interacts hapticaly with the moving faders, which behave like metronomes, at various tempi and rhythmic motifs. The faders' mechanical sounds are recorded and processed in real-time by digital signal processing algorithms and projected sonically back into space. Moreover the positions of the faders, driven by automated procedures and altered mechanically by the performer gestures, are controlling various compositional parameters affecting the timbre, the rhythm and the movement of various projected words and phrases. A gradual interplay between the shadows of the physical interface's structure, the human gestures and the light refraction from the acrylic surfaces shapes equally the visual elements of the composition. The present inter-media performance, is an interactive audio-visual composition and a dance between the hands of the performer and the movements of the haptic interface.