07/05/07

The Reactable on its world tour with Icelandic singer Björk

The overwhelmingly successful Reactable has embarked on a world tour with popular Icelandic singer Björk. This innovative musical instrument was created by members of The Music Technology Research Group (GTM) at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), supervised by director, Sergi Jordà, from the IUA - Audiovisual University Institute - in the UPF.

Björk's first Volta tour started with a concert in Coachella , California , USA before an audience of thousands of fans on 27th April. This was followed by more three concerts in New York city on 2nd, 5th and 8th May with many more planned to take place over the next 18 months.

The reactable

The reactable is a collaborative musical instrument, with a table-shaped tangible interface. Several musicians control the instrument simultaneously by placing and moving specially designed transparent objects on a translucent tabletop. The users can create complex, dynamic sonic topologies by moving the objects together and interconnecting them in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language. Each object has a different audio function, including sound generators, pitch filters, audio modulators, etc.

History

The reactable is a revolutionary electronic musical instrument developed over the past five years by Marcos Alonso, Günter Geiger and Martin Kaltenbrunner, all computer engineers, musicians and members of the MTG. The team was supervised by Sergi Jordà - a researcher, musician, digital creator who has collaborated in the past with artists such as la Fura dels Baus and Marcel·lí Antúnez.

The reactable project was set up in 2003 to create a musical instrument combining the best of computer-based instruments and the latest in musical creation - for example the possibility of sharing control and visualisation of certain processes with a computer, and the basic features of traditional instruments (direct and simultaneous control of several parameters using both hands). The instrument is intended to be intuitive and accessible for occasional users, children, etc. It is also a learning tool with infinite possibilities for professional musicians to use at concerts.

Since it was first unveiled to the public in September 2005 at the Ars Electronica festival in Linz (Austria), the reactable has appeared with its creators at many international festivals and concerts, including NIME (Paris, May 2006), Sonar (Barcelona, June 2006), Siggraph (Boston, August 2006), Transmediale (Berlin, January 2007) and Optronica (London, March 2007). Its popularity rocketed at the Blogosphere after demo videos were published on YouTube at the end of 2006. More than a million and a half viewers have watched these videos to date and there are thousands of blogs around the world that talk constantly about this invention.