Introduction
Everybody knows that feeling. You are walking through one of those fancy art exhibitions and are purely immersed into the world of art. But there is still this barrier between you and the painting. You are not allowed to touch it. So we thought about a solution on how to get rid of this barrier and make the art more tangible. After some brainstorming, our idea was created. The House Haus. The goal is to use the power of music and make the art feel a little bit more alive so that people can interact with it and build an electronic music track.
Research:
We needed the right hardware to make this project happen, so we looked up the internet and stumbled across a company, that produces electrically conductive paint and the „Touch Board“ which turned out to be the perfect solution for our project.
Basis:
Since the touch board has 12 Sensors, we were limited to 12 individual loops which we had to create in Ableton Live first. E.g. Kick/Basedrum, HiHats, Claps and so on. We then connected the Touchboard to Ableton Live and set each sensor as one specific key with the help of the Midi Mapping Function.
Design:
12 possible Sensors meant 12 possible touch areas to us, so we tried to design a house that has 12 windows you can touch. -1 Window that symbolized the reset button.
We also designed an exchangeable front wall to make the house a little bit more versatile.
We then used a canvas to paint the house on. To hide the connection cables from the viewer, we used simple pins that we connected on the backside with the alligator clips and the Touchboard, which has to be connected to Ableton live.
Features
– ‘Touch Board’ from Bare Conductive
– 12 tactile sensors
– 2 special sound effects which shapes can be exchanged
– 1 reset sensor
– house track can be individually customized in Ableton (change beat, kick, clap, snare, hi-hat)
– electrically conductive paint ensures durability and high quality
– exceptionally simple assembly and disassembly due to alligator clips
Future Plans
The House Haus can be expanded in all directions. It is possible to enlarge the house with other houses and create a whole neighborhood or city. The sound elements can be exchanged and can lead to a completely new track.
One or more of the windows could be replaced by a grey frame and the content inside could be exchangeable. It would be possible to insert faces or objects.
The electrically conductive paint could also be covered with pictures as long as the paper is not too thick.