Jon Rose - The Interactive Ball
Jon Rose's Interactive Ball appeared for three days at the Mona Foma Festival in Hobart, Tasmania, in January 2011. Read his notes about the project on Resonate blog.
On his homepage, Rose writes:
'A ball flying through space has an inherent mystery; it replicates our lonely and insecure position in the universe. Any young child seems to recognise the universality and truth of the ball. It's global. All children, even those who show little interest in games or sport, respond to this user-friendly object. Add the random qualities of the oval ball to our philosophical observation, and we approach notions of twentieth century physics - the Uncertainty Principle and Quantum Mechanics. The oval ball may adhere to Newtonian gravity, but its chance bounce-ability gives lie to Einstein's own belief that "God does not play dice with the Universe". To football fans the ball verges on being a sacred object; the ball game - a religious rite. Bill Shankly, the legendary manager of the Liverpool soccer club, was once asked if football was a matter of life and death. "No' he said, 'it's more important than that".
Sensors in The Interactive Ball determine the ball's varied sonic qualities. The hardware and software used in the project was developed in collaboration with the live electronic music centre STEIM, Amsterdam.
More information about the ball project is available on Jon Rose's website.
The video footage was shot by Jon Rose (on stage) and Garth Paine (in the crowd).
Further links
Jon Rose - AMC profile
The Ball Project by Jon Rose (Resonate blog)
Jon Rose - Interactive Ball (Jon Rose homepage)
STEIM, Amsterdam (www.steim.org)