Rose I is a musical AI and coffee table. Rose’s surface, an electromagnetic field build upon a piece of circular glass, is a connected, networked series of pads, or petals, that analyze your movements and react with musically relevant responses. As you play, Rose plays back. The ability to draw harmonies and paint rhythm becomes possible as the pressure of your touch isn’t as important as way you move. A player can layer Rose’s surface with various sounds/instruments but can also define the way Rose responds. The design is based on Roger Penrose’s famous kite and dart tessellation. Rose 1, pictured below, uses capacitive sensors and the Arduino mega 2560 to send serial information to the computer, converts it to MIDI, analyzes, remaps and reacts using a beautiful and brilliant Max MSP patch, and is controlled in Ableton Live. Rose was built in collaboration with Florent Ghys, Miles Bridges and Shiran Sukumar. Rose 1 premiered at the 2014 MATA Festival in New York.
