zoonori

Zoonori is a musical interface out of paper folding. Experiencing zoonori is a way of discovering paper transforming into different shapes by folding and creating music. Wiring enables the paper delicately senses touching and holding your fingers together. The paper is guiding to trigger folding movements in blue print order. Switches made out of conductive fabric is visibly embedded on the paper. Exposed switches indicate secretive instruction like puzzle game. One fold is assigned to one note of vocal sound so folding rhythm is converted to music. Combination of fold creates harmonic sound. By folding multiple origami with others creates a symphony.

Hand Craft as a Language
Is it possible to create a real-time communication protocol from crafting? How does the story telling change when you consider both the end result (the finished product) and the realtime process used to create it? This is complex communication compared to verbal language because it is a slow and indirect communication protocol. Non-verbal language is and effective tool to produce a crisscrossing senses. Since creating art delivers an emotional message, this process can be considered a powerful communication protocol – just as effective than the final art piece and more intuitive than verbal language.

Crafting is a story telling. The process of hand crafting objects has allowed creators to imbue objects with a story. Historically, women’s stories have been told this way. In many cultures women have traditionally be responsive in house hold that remains handcrafting knitting stitching cloth making. Beyond the practicality, the techniques use and product produce, one can discover a secret language that communicated private stories and this activities have passed down. For example, embroidering quilt patches carves nostalgic stories into the fabric and then assembling these pieces unifies stories into one piece.

There is a certain level of intimacy that can only be achieved when the hand is directly involved in the communications. Experiencing the materials by touching them is an intuitive sensory conversation. For example, stitching involves repetitive finger movements on the fabric with a needle. The hand motions are in rhythm with the needle and the fabric. Sometimes the hand movement has become a meditative activity, that can clear mind by continuously focusing on the material. Origami requires sensory in rhythm. Each fold dramatically affects the shape it very meticulous hand movement. There is a unique satisfaction in the process of producing a tangible object with hands. During handcrafting things, I was able to listen to subtle movement and tension to the fingers.


Minimal / Abstract Symbolic
The origami designs are never true to life representations. There is a mystic sensual that generates imaginations to viewer and player. Although it is folded to mimic a certain figure it is just a representation of it. Folding a paper into an elephant is meant to mimic the shape of the elephant. Origami represents a simplification of the figure’s feature. Starting from the original square, origami can be anything the creator can imagine. There is a moment of observing to the material while folding. Also, there is a new discovery each fold, because the final shape gradually appears during the process. It is like a puzzle from just a square piece of fabric. The most enjoyable part is that all those discoveries and achievements happen by one’s hands. Possitive come from creating tangible objects with your finger movement.

Beauty of the Rule
I am fascinated by generic games that run with simple rules. It is amazing that how players can be continuously active by following simple rule system. There is some a basic trigger system that motivates and entertains players to reach a goal dynamically. Many good games has simple rules with diverse scenario, for example, Chess or Go. Origami has same aspects because it is based on simple geometric folding rules used create different shapes. Robert L. Lang states, “Much of the charm lies in its simplicity.” Nearly all of origami is structured combinations squares and folds. The combinations of folding are structured as well. Long explains the folding systems in origami:

The design of an origami model may be broken down into two parts, folding the base, and folding the details. A base is the regular geometric shape that has a structure similar to that of the subject, although it may appear to bear very little resemblance to the subject. The detail folds, on the other hand, are those folds that transform the appearance of the base into the final model. The design of a base must take into account the entire sheet of paper. All the parts of a base are linked together and cannot be altered without affecting the rest of the paper. Detailed folds, on the other hand, usually affect only a small part of the paper. These are the folds that turn a flap into a leg, a wing, or a head. Converting a base into an animal using detail folds requires tactical thinking. Developing the base to begin with requires strategy.

Thus, process of origami creating is simply based on folding but it requires tactical thinking and strategy building. At the end, it appears as a nice simple figure as a reward. Thus, following the rule of folding is motivating enough to finish making origami.

Sharing Experience / Revealing Secrets

When an object is created in a physical form by craft, it represents the process of the craft. Then the private exercise becomes public activity. When they are gathered, it means that solo activity becomes collaboration. Traditionally, craft has been personal secretive activity usually for women to spend their time to get away from the trouble. But in post modern, it is considered as an unique expression technique due to lack of hand crafting in ordinary life. There are artist who makes their statement by knitting, sewing and embroidering.

Intimacy of Tangible User Interface (TUI)

Our windows to the digital world have been confined to flat rectangular screens and pixels – “painted bits.” But while our visual senses are steeped in the sea of digital information, our bodies remain physical world. “Tangible bits” give physical form to digital information, making bits directly manipulable and perceptible. --- Hiroshi Ish

Reading Hiroshi Ish’s definition of Tangible User Interface(TUI) comparison to Graphical User Interface(GUI)[ ], I found that what was missing with digital interfaces - keyboards and screens - and why it took sometime for me to get use to them. Computers in the market are fabulous as efficient communication tools, but they are lacking sophisticated emotional communication. As a sculptor, I had to force myself to sit in front of the static digital interface to learn efficient tools for my needs.

Hiroshi Ishi’s notion of intimacy in physical interface encouraged further exploration about adding physical construction features for the user. The bottle[ ], from his TUI Group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT), is the inspiration behind the zoonori. There is a magical illusion between the physical object and the sound. He used a traditional behavior of opening a bottle and smelling it to play sound samples. When a user opens a clear glass bottle the sound comes out as the scent comes out from the soysauce bottles. The Paper in the Origami Symphony will also have the illusion of containing the sound sample within the object. The difference is that the sound is produced form the user’s own creation. The sound exists during and after the user creates an origami shape and then disappears when he or she deconstructs it.

The collaborative interaction in zoonori was inspired by recent developments of various tabletop tangible music controllers. The reacTable uses physical objects on a tabletop projection surface to represent the parts of the modular synthesizer. Performers can change the topology of the synthesizer. One of the main features is that the sound is synthesized by the distance between the cube blocks on the table. While the reacTable uses modular synthesis, Origami Symphony uses loop-based synthesis and sound samples are independently looping with the object.

Tactile Visualization of Sound: NIME Artists (Maybe Just focus to Mention Golan Levin)
The International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression(NIME) started out as a workshop at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) in 2001. Since then, researchers and musicians from all over the world gather to share their knowledge and late-breaking work on new musical interface design. I am inspired by the interfaces that deal with the correspondence of sound from visual or vice versa with tactile quality. Toshio Iwai and Golan Levin are may favorite artists who creates unique musical interfaces with tactile visualization.

Toshio Iwai is a new interactive media artist whose work is focused on light relating to the sound. His recent success in Electroplankton[ ] for Nintendo DS was exciting because the relation between cute characters and sounds. The characters in Electroplankton correlate to the tones and the melodies of sound. For example, Volvoice, a bubble like character, is a character that contains recorded speech. As user changes the shape the recorded voice will change. (explain more about the interface) This interface also demonstrates how different manipulations of the touch screen can be applied to various musical expressions.

Golan Levin is an artist, engineer and composer interested in developing artifacts and events which explore supple new modes of interactive expression. His work focuses on the design of systems for the creation, manipulation and performance of simultaneous image and sound, as part of a more general inquiry into non-verbal communications protocols in cybernetic systems. In The Manual Input Sessions performance by Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman, the audience can feel the tangible hand movements in the digital presentation. During the performance, a computer vision system analyses the silhouettes of the performers’ hands as they scribble on transparencies, and move across the glass tops of the overhead projectors. The hand gestures and transparency drawings are then analysed by their custom software. In response, the software generates synthetic graphics and sounds that are tightly coupled with the forms and movements of the performers’ actions. The logic of the sound trigger is clearly animating that it is from human hand movement. His work captures the analog movement of the human body and emphasizes that wave by interchanging between sound and motion graphics. Thus, his work contains both tactile and analog qualities through the use of digital media. Messa de Voice is the most successful piece demonstrating these qualities. Because the sound of the performance comes from the human voice and the motion graphics naturally smooth enough to correspond to the voice.

zoonori is for anyone who enjoys music and crafting. It is a musical toy but not necessarily only for children. Depending on the difficulty level of origami, it can be suitable for children, untrained adults or even advanced origami artists. I will start developing the project with a few simple folding shapes, but my goal is to have a large collection of various folding patterns available in each sheet. In the future, the physical piece can be manufactured to allow mass numbers of users to have it as a personal device but in this project I will only discuss the project in the scope of an art installation or a performance use.

Spacial Interaction scenario
There is a horizontally long paper on the wall with origami cut outs on people’s eye level. Users will walk to the wall almost leaning their body to it. By folding origami shapes from the wall, users can create musical sound. User will experience an intimate moment with the wall. And other viewer passing by will see people lined up facing the wall moving their arms.

Musical Interaction scenario
The music will be mapped as two different categories - the base beat and the melody. There are simple forms and complex forms of origami. The simple origami shapes will play base beats as percussion instruments, and the complex origami will be the melody interface. A group of origami shapes will form a band that will produce multi-layered musical pieces. The player will start from a simple origami design to create a base rhythm and then make another to add a percussion beat based on the first rhythm. When a sequence is created, the sequence will loop as the origami stays still. Once the base music is made, the player can craft melody origami to formulate a sequence of melody. When the player shakes or places it on a specific board, the melody or base beat will play faster, slower or backwards. Similar to beat origami, by folding multiple melody origami, users can make harmonic sound as well. Although folding an origami piece is slow and meditative, playing with multiple origami pieces can compose exciting music. Depending on the user’s preference, the music can be purely melodic or purely rhythmic

The zoonori is made out of tyvek (durable paper) and conductive fabric. Conductive fabric is mapped as switches on the paper. When there is a fold it triggers the sound through Max MSP.