title: the god article
type: augmented digitally fabricated musical instrument
year: 2014
author/composer: Ant Mace, Alexandros Kontogeorgakopoulos, John O'Connell, Aris Bezas, Stefan Goodchild, Olivia Kotsifa
first exhibition: Christie's Gallery, London Design Festival, London, UK, September 2014
The Turkish Ney is steeped in cultural significance. A traditional wind instrument, it was first played around 4500 years ago but its breath control is difficult and few around the world can teach it. Ethnomusicologist John O'Connell, Sonic Art Scholar Alexandros Kontogeorgakopoulos and User Experience Designer Anthony Mace developed digitaly fabricated Ney replicas with electronic sensors and a performance visualisation application to enable learning online. With potential for breath sensing and notation in entertainment and healthcare, this unusual project fuses one of the world's oldest instruments with cutting-edge technology to break new musical ground. The God Article was supported by Objects Sandbox, and funded by the AHRC's REACT Knowledge Exchange Hub for the Creative Economy programme. Aris Bezas, Stefan Goodchild and Olivia Kotsifa were part of the development team too.
A short documentary about the project can be found here.
The video aboce shows the visualisation of a performance with the digitally fabricated instrument.