HAPTIC AUDIO VISUALISER

When designing an experience it is important to consider the full suite of inputs offered to human perception. MindBuffer’s Audio Visualiser is an interactive, projection-mapped installation that explores the boundaries between our auditory, vision and tactile senses.

Designed and developed for Scienceworks’ Beyond Perception exhibition in Melbourne AUS, the installation features surround sound generative audio delivered via Spatial Audio Server, 21 transducer-interactive cushions and real-time audio-reactive graphics projection-mapped to a laminate cutout that matches the layout of the chairs within the space.

As a visitor sits in one of these chairs, pressure sensors react and send values creating a reaction throughout the system, generating immersive audio pulses, tactile cushion vibrations, and vivid visual effects. The frequency and amplitude of these reactions are uniquely mapped for each of the chairs in the system, allowing visitors to create unique, synaesthetic compositions together and unlock hidden experiences as secret seating combination triggers were discovered.

As a visitor sits in one of these chairs, pressure sensors react and send values creating a reaction throughout the system, generating immersive audio pulses, tactile cushion vibrations, and vivid visual effects. The frequency and amplitude of these reactions are uniquely mapped for each of the chairs in the system, allowing visitors to create unique, synaesthetic compositions together and unlock hidden experiences as secret seating combination triggers were discovered.

MindBuffer achieved this utilising a suite of hand-picked technologies. Visuals were designed and developed using a sophisticated GLSL shader pipeline hosted within OpenFrameworks, chair sensors were interfaced via Max/MSP and audio playback and analysis was performed via FFT and RMS within the Spatial Audio Server and delivered to the rest of the installation via OSC.

The Beyond Perception exhibition, hosting multiple installations by MindBuffer, went on to win the Victorian Premier Design Award in 2018 for Best in Category Winner for Communication Design.

If your company or institution is interested in integrating cutting edge, cross-sensory experience into an upcoming project, feel free to get in touch.

Credits

Client: Museums Victoria
Exhibition: Beyond Perception
Production: MindBuffer
Software Development: MindBuffer & Tom Gowan
Video Production: Joshua Batty
Photography: Fran Parker & Museums Victoria
Filming: Museums Victoria & Joshua Batty