The second mode is a little more aggressive than the first. A switch is built into the frame which toggles between two modes. This provides a very expressive musical playing experience, even for people who have never played music before. An algorithm created with Max allows the music to speed up and slow down and get louder and softer, based on the depth.
When someone presses into it the visuals react around where the person presses, and the music is triggered. If the spandex is not being pressed into nothing happens. The Kinect measures the average depth of the spandex from the frame it is mounted on. The piece was made using Processing, Max/MSP, Arduino and a Kinect. As hard as you try to understand what’s in between life and death, you can never fully know. Mizalu is about death and experience of reality, so this membrane represents a plane that you can experience but never get through. During one scene in the performance dancers will press into the spandex with the audience facing the opposite side. The original concept stems from a performance piece I’m currently developing as Purring Tiger (with Kiori Kawai) titled Mizalu, which will premiere in June 2013. Firewall is an interactive media installation created with Mike Allison. A stretched sheet of spandex acts as a membrane interface sensitive to depth that people can push into and create fire-like visuals as well as expressively play music.