Chris O'Shea, a digital artist living in the UK, has always been interested in the relationship between interactive spaces and sound synthesis. However he recently decided to explore the connection between synthesis (aka frequency modulation) and electronics, creating a 'Frequency Modulator' prototype. The tool is a tube shaped instrument that allowed gesture based control over the synthesis and provided a visual feedback to the frequencies using lights. A large area of light corresponds to high frequency, while a small area means low frequency. The same control type is applied to both the ends of the tube. The prototype has been created connecting buttons and lights to a MiDitron (a standard adopted by the electronic music industry for controlling devices used for electronic art projects) and a PC. Describing this work on his personal website, O'Shea defines it as 'a very small project [...] but gave me a good foundation to build upon for my next physical interface projects'. We are looking forward to seeing the application.
Valentina Culatti