Sound Vessels

This project explored how everyday gestures could be used to create music. Specifically, we were interested in the gesture of pouring liquids. This is quite a skillful gesture, taking a long time to learn to do well, and has many forms depending on the type of liquid, the size of the vessels, the social context, etc. We embedded data devices, such as gyroscopes and water sensors, into liquid-pouring vessels and used the data they emitted to control machine learning models. This resulted in an entirely new, and very physical/embodied, way of controlling otherwise quite abstract machine learning sounds. We've presented this in Berlin twice, and are aiming to develop it next year in collaboration with the Oxford Cultural programme.

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Research leads: Robert Laidlow (Oxford University) & Federico Visi (UdK, Berlin)

Also joined by Nicola Privato (Intelligent Instruments Lab, University of Iceland), performers of the KNM Ensemble (Berlin) and Alberto de Campo (Udk, Berlin).

A video of a Sound Vessels performance can be viewed here