The Human Theremin

 turned her sister into a human theremin using conductive ink.

Here’s what Sansom has to say about the project:

Initially a project on ‘seeing sound’, I ended up experimenting with the possibilities of conductive ink.

Using hand built circuitry I was able to turn my sister into a fully functioning theremin, the idea being that eventually (with stable electronics) the equipment could be used by dancers to create music that relies entirely on choreography and body movement to generate sound as they dance. In this way the visual performance and the audio become intrinsically linked and thus the viewer is able to ‘see’ the sound as it is created.

via make

6 thoughts on “The Human Theremin

  1. I appreciate her desire to push the envelope and bridge the boundaries between different art disciplines…well done!

  2. Might as well paint it on a mannequin or the wall. I thought it was designed to translate a dancer’s movements into sound, not the mere proximity of someone else. The ink should be detecting and translating musculonervous signals or muscle density or both or even blood flow/temperature. The “dancer” just standing there is no more an instrument than a beanpole. The dancer could dance up to others but if sound depends on only several inches of proximity, there is going to be an enormous amount of silence during a typical dance. I mean, it’s obvious the lack of motion here is sort of contraindicating any kind of dance involvement, isn’t it? Or is it just me picking this up? This isn’t seeming to be a tool very useful in dance. At least, not very expressive dance.

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