Calvin Harris Humanthesizer
Client: Columbia Records
Creatives: Phil Clandillon and Steve Milbourne
We collaborated with the inventors of Bare Conductive – a new kind of electricity-conducting body ink, and UK electronic musician and producer Calvin Harris, to create the Humanthesizer, a giant human synthesizer. The new ink, when painted on the skin, allows a current to be passed through the body without causing an electric shock.
The instrument consists of 34 pads on the floor which have been painted with the conductive ink and connected to a computer via some clever custom electronics. The performers stand on the pads, and touch each other on the hands or body to complete a circuit and trigger a sound. Calvin played the main keyboard line and effects by interacting with a row of eight models. The rhythmic portions of the track were played by seven dancers performing a carefully choreographed routine.
Bare Conductive was developed as part of a project by RCA Industrial Design and Engineering masters students Bibi Nelson, Becky Pilditch, Isabel Lizardi and Matt Johnson. The custom electronics and software for the project were created by Matt Johnson, employing an Arduino Mega and the graphical audio programming tool Max/MSP. The performers, floor pads, Arduinos and Max/MSP combine to create a giant MIDI controller, used to sequence and quantize music with Ableton Live.
Watch the making of below to see how we did it.
Creatives: Phil Clandillon and Steve Milbourne
We collaborated with the inventors of Bare Conductive – a new kind of electricity-conducting body ink, and UK electronic musician and producer Calvin Harris, to create the Humanthesizer, a giant human synthesizer. The new ink, when painted on the skin, allows a current to be passed through the body without causing an electric shock.
The instrument consists of 34 pads on the floor which have been painted with the conductive ink and connected to a computer via some clever custom electronics. The performers stand on the pads, and touch each other on the hands or body to complete a circuit and trigger a sound. Calvin played the main keyboard line and effects by interacting with a row of eight models. The rhythmic portions of the track were played by seven dancers performing a carefully choreographed routine.
Bare Conductive was developed as part of a project by RCA Industrial Design and Engineering masters students Bibi Nelson, Becky Pilditch, Isabel Lizardi and Matt Johnson. The custom electronics and software for the project were created by Matt Johnson, employing an Arduino Mega and the graphical audio programming tool Max/MSP. The performers, floor pads, Arduinos and Max/MSP combine to create a giant MIDI controller, used to sequence and quantize music with Ableton Live.
Watch the making of below to see how we did it.