Virgin Mobile - Echo Temple - 2011

MPC Digital launches in the US with an Interactive Sound Installation that allowed users to play virtual musical instruments by moving their bodies in front of motion-tracking cameras. The unique musical experience conducted by the audience, was concepted by Mother New York, and was the centerpiece of Kyocera's activation at Virgin Mobile's FreeFest, a full-day music festival featuring Cee Lo, Patti Smith, etc. attended by 50,000+ people.

The Echo Temple included six monolithic speaker towers with motion tracking cameras encircling a central tower including subwoofers. Participants standing in front of the monoliths were able to manipulate a different melodic instrument's volume, pitch or unique audio effect by moving their body and waving fans branded with special symbols. The central tower produced the core of the mix: drums, bass, drones and the main harmonic progressions, and had architectural bamboo that could be tapped to trigger percussive sounds within the mix.

The installation's technology combined Ableton Live, Cycling74 Max and a custom build of ReacTIVision. Cameras in each tower were fed into embedded systems running a custom build of ReacTIVision which tracked both symbols as well as body movement and camera activity. This was all sent to MaxMSP, which in turn was used to transform the raw input into meaningful musical control information for Live.

See more about our agile development process by clicking here.

Client: Kyocera and Virgin Mobile

Advertising Agency: Mother, NY

Production Co: MPC
Head of Digital Content, US: Wayne Robins
Creative Technologist: Neil Voss
Developer: Brian Chasalow
Composers: Neil Voss & Chris Chapman
Audio Tech: Christopher Burdett
Producer(s): Christos Mountzouros and Matthew Ward
Director: Wayne Robins
Camera: Adam Donald
Production Assistant: Alliah Mourad
Editorial Company: Cut & Run
Edit: Alex Dondero, Adam Donald & Wayne Robins
Flame Artist: Alex Lovejoy
Colorist: Mark Gethin