Imogen Heap’s Gloves That Gesture Into Music
Valerio Spagnuolo
Apr 26, 2014
As the or EDM as it’s called continues to gain popularity all over the world, there are still some who stay away from this kind of music simply because they don’t understand it.
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And they’re not to blame, because going to a concert where the performer seems to be extremely preoccupied with his/her laptop isn’t exactly enterprising. Imogen Heap, singer-songwriter and frontwoman of Frou Frou, has found a way to help DJ’s express their music-making abilities in a more animated form.
Introducing the Mi.Mu Gloves
Currently a project on Kickstarter launched by Heap herself, the Mi.Mu Gloves are a rather impressive piece of innovation that blur the line between human and technology. These gloves wirelessly control music with the help of programmable gestures, acting as mini-computers.
How They Work
Equipped with a series of sensors, the Mi.Mu Gloves track your hand position, movement and velocity, to map them in software. You can program each movement of the hand to act as a command for a musical function, eventually leading. The gloves are capable of tracking even the smallest of gestures, thanks to bend sensors located near the wrist and fingers.
Why The Gloves Are A Great Alternative
A simple life of your hand can replace turning up the volume on the computer, making it way more expressive than the earlier situation. Swiping your hand to the left can add a filter to the sound, and doing a grasping action by your mouth will trigger recording. The entire performance by a DJ will finally look like a lively, interactive one, proclaiming to the world that the artist is actually making music.
Pricing And Manufacture
A single glove is priced at $2,000 on Kickstarter presently, and that’s not expensive if you think about all the technology that has been built into it. Heap has stated that the gloves will only be available for a limited run, and will be made by hand. Once mass-production begins though, the prices will be lowered considerably.
