Early into 2020 I was invited to attend an event from the SWCTN where I met Movement Artist Silvia Carderelli-Gronau 2. As a result and outcome of the event Silvia and I found, that we have a shared interest in using technology that does not inhibit but non-invasively supports humans to perform or stay connected.

During the initial 2 day fully online workshop organized by Kaleider it became apparant that the current way we interact physically in close proximity will not always be possible (especially since Covid-19 was on the rise) and that technology might provide a non-invasive way of aiding the situation and people connectedness.

We came up with the idea of using sound localisation and 3d-prototyping to build a device which can be used to invesitgate this idea. As a result we were invited to present at the SWCTN Automatation Showcase a first glimpse of what we had in mind.

The Sonic Dancer is a raspberry-pi powered network of devices that use a 6 microphone array from Respeaker to locate mutiple moving sound sources and visualise the source on a paired device through a radial display similar to a compas or through an onboard webserver. By using the sonic dancer, a network of devices once fully developed will allow users to grasp where somebody else is situation in relation to the device, thus offering a virtual anchor to "feel" the presence of somebody else. Currently the network consists of two devices talking to one another.

A short video on the idea: