Hacking the Human Body

        While many electronic musicians use their hands to create and manipulate sound, Daito Manabe has taken a radically different approach.  Manabe’s innovative use of myoelectric sensors has allowed artists to interact with technology on a more physical and possibly more personal level.  In a recent project, Manabe attached these myoelectric sensors to people’s faces and was consequently able to read the electrical impulses created by their facial movement.  These impulses were then translated to different sounds.  In this way, an artist could make a drum sound by smiling, or produce another distinct sound simply by raising their eyebrows.  Sound could be controlled by facial muscles, and on a deeper level, could be created by the expression of human emotion.

            In the past, somewhat similar cultural artifacts have been used to relate movement in the physical world to different sounds.  In a previous project for Nike, Daito used the movements of Nike sneakers to produce different types of sound.  Each different sneaker contained a sensor that wired to a different instrument sound.  In addition, multiple sensors in certain sneakers allowed the artists to twist them in different ways to produce new pitches or noises.  In this project the artists were able to use the shoes as medium for their art.  The Nama instrument is another unique way that sound has been parameterized.  Created by Luiz Zanotello, the Nama is a piece of fabric that contains conductive threads and accelerometers which allow movements of the fabric to create both audio and visual representations.  Similar to the Nike shoes, bending and rotating the cloth in different ways creates unique sounds that the artist can utilize.  Although these artifacts represent similar attempts to connect objects in the physical world to different sounds in new and innovative ways, they do not directly utilize movement of the human body as Daito’s project did.  Daito’s application of myoelectric sensors to the human face caused a more direct relationship to form between the artist and the medium; rather than through secondary objects such as cloth or shoes.

            With this innovative use of existing technology comes a closer relationship between human emotions and the expression of these emotions through sound.  Daito’s initial motivation for “hacking the human body” was answering the question “Can you smile without emotion?”; leading him to explore new ways to capture the expression of emotion that went beyond taking pictures of the human face.  Although bridging the gap between human emotion and technology is an exciting prospect with numerous benefits, it may also have less admirable and possibly invasive implications.  Answering the question of whether or not one can smile without emotion and producing technology with the ability to express these emotions lends an intrusive power to those who hold such technology.  George Orwell’s 1984, which features conviction for thought crime, is still quite a stretch from this cultural artifact’s technological capacity and current application.  However, with the increasing ease through which humans can transform their emotions into different sounds as forms of expression, it may be sensible to consider how this technology can become an invasive indication of our feelings in the future; a process which has already earned the title “hacking the human body”.

http://thecreatorsproject.com/blog/hacking-the-human-body-meet-daito-manabe