Listening to the Hum is a work in progress / demonstration piece using the cell-phone sensor visualization / sonification set-up under development as part of the water-wheel.net “cell-phone plug-in” project that we will demonstrating at ISEA-2013 in Sydeny, AU in June 2013.

For ISEA13, the team will present highlights of their current research, and conduct a demonstration of the Tap ‘plugin’ in a brief live performative presentation exploring tracks and soundscapes of remote participants’ local waterways/scapes in Australia, Europe, and North America.

Shown here is Listening to the Hum is a collaboration with performers & feldenkrais practitioners Mary Armentrout, Marcia Scott and James Cunningham exploring ideas of ‘networked physicality’ using the ubiquitous smartphone as both an inexpensive network enabled sensor and locus point for virtual collaboration.

In physical space the project shows a pair of dancers (armentrout and scott) wearing white crash helmets, with glowing smartphones transmitting the changes in acceleration & rotation of their heads. A third unseen performer (Cunningham) is based in Brisbane and collaborating via a network.

This trial was shown May 8th and 9th, 2013 at the Garage in San Francisco as part of the Mary Armentrout Dance Theater show With and alone. Earlier development of the sensor / movement technology was supported by a 2013 residency at Earthdance and guest artist support for the Water-wheel project at Amherst College.