Firewall: an interactive membrane that acts as an interface in which pressure creates rhythms and colors

Americans Aaron Sherwood and Mike Allison have created Firewall, an interactive visual and audio media installation that functions as a luminous tactile membrane that serves as an interface for creating visual games and music.

Firewall is an interactive installation created by electronic music composer Mike Allison in collaboration with Aaron Sherwood, New York ITP student. It is a thin layer of elastane (element commercially registered as Lycra) or spandex used as a sensitive membrane, that reacts to the pressure that a person exerts on it, and?, depending on the depth it reaches, generates images based on fire and, the most interesting: music, in different power and speed.

According to Allison, “The original idea comes from a performance called Mizalu, which I am doing together with a collective called Purring Tiger. In one of the scenes, the dancers press an elastane membrane with the audience on their opposite side. The performance is about death and the experience of reality, so this membrane represents that plane that, sometimes, can be experienced, but never pass. "That thin line between life and death that can only be crossed once.".

Firewall has been carried out with the combination of several open source programs and plugins, How do I sound Processing?, Max / MSP y Arduino, a projector Epson, studio monitors and a Kinect unit Microsoft. The latter measures the average depth of the elastane membrane. When the membrane is not pressed, nothing happens. But if someone presses, the images begin to flow and the music starts.. An algorithm created by Max/MSP allows music to be speeded up or slowed down, or sound louder or softer, based on pressure depth. Music has two modes, one based on piano, calmer, and another based on electronic rhythms, more aggressive.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/54882144[/vimeo]

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/55753147[/vimeo]