DTPA 2006, Doncaster, UK (2)

On the third day (my second day…) of the conference Sama’a Al Hashimi, a researcher and PhD candidate at Middlesex University, did a presentation of her work with using non-speech voice as input to interaction. She showed some of her work with computer games controlled by the voice of the users. This, according to her, turned the users into performers which is a very similar thought to the one behind my sound installation etherSound.

Expanding etherSound with the ability of controlling the output in realtime with your voice through the microphone of your mobile telephone is something I have wanted to do ever since I first conceived of the project. I will look more closely on Sama’a’s work and further explore if I can draw on her research to expand etherSound.

The summing up of the conference, led by Dr. Sita Popat was very brief and focused on some of the key concepts that she had picked up during the conference:

• Play
• Transparency
• Magic (?)
• Beauty (?)
• Liminal
• Serendipity

Not all of these make sense to me (see the question marks…) and the real connections still has to be made. All together, this was however a great conference.