Musical steps

Tuned Stairs will turn the footfalls of visitors to the Pompidou Fabrica exhibition into a musical experience. Check the project website to hear how the Stairs would sound with different combinations of people coming up and down the stairs.

An installation by Hansi Raber, Federico Urdaneta, Carlo Zoratti, Andy Cameron and Daniel Hirschmann.

FABRICA: Les Yeux Ouverts at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. October 6, 2006 - November 6, 2006.

Via Fabrica blog.

More music with the feet:

Taylor Hokanson (the artist who created the Sledgehammer-operated keyboard!) made these lovely Pimpin Shoes. The dancing shoes are meant for one song only (Billie Jean, by Michael Jackson). LEDs in the sole flash on each step, until microprocessors switch to "disco mode" during the chorus (video).

Despina Papadopoulos had the idea for the ClickSneaks while walking down a street, wearing sneakers next to a friend wearing stilettoes.

She recorded the "click" sound of high heels on a voice chip and had it activated on each step the revamped sneakers take. In fact, a speaker, amplifier and a sensor acting as a switch on the sole of each foot, transform these seemingly normal sneakers into a flighty performance.

Pimpin Shoes and ClickSneaks

Symphony for 52 Shoes, by Ingrid Bachmann, is a kinetic artwork that involves 27 pairs of second hand shoes. Each shoe has a toe and heel tap used in tap dancing attached to it. The shoes move or dance independently of each other. The mechanical motion of tapping is created using solenoids (tubular magnetic sensors) that move up and down when activated by a switch. Each switch, 52 in total, is controlled by a microcontroller and software that activates the sequence of the tapping of the shoes.

See the installation at Neutral Ground, September 9 to October 6, 2006. Photo credit: Wotjek Gwiazda.

Symphony for 52 Shoes and Siren Shoes

More! Walking machine enables wearers to move through the streets hearing and broadcasting the amplified sound of their own footsteps in real time; the Siren Shoes make a loud noise when both feet are on the ground at the same time; Ephemeral Gumboots, a human/computer-dance/music interactive system; Tap-n-bass picks up and remixes the sounds of wired-up tap shoes, resulting in drum-n-bass-inspired music.