Sound Flakes

When the "Do, Re, Mi, Fa,..." faucets of Sound Flakes are turned, sound drips into the water pool, where it floats as "flakes" of sound. Users can stir them or scoop them up with a ladle.

For Satako Moroi's installation, images from a motion-capture system are projected on the space at full size. Faucets, ladles, and a pool of water are combined to intermingle artificial feedback (floating images of flakes, MIDI sounds) and "natural" feedback (tactile sensations, sound, and visual information from real water and toys).

In one of her previous project, Floating words (picture on the right), you could speak into a cone attached above a pool and water would drip onto the surface, turning into "letters" that floated around like leaves in a pond. You could even a stir them with an electromagnetic wand.

The work used voice-recognition and 3D graphics software projecting words onto a screen beneath the water. The cone was a recorder: your voice activated a pump that dribbled the water into the spot where the program would begin the word cycle. The wand worked by wirelessly feeding the computer directional instructions.