Times are a changing. We drink our coffee from cups made out of corn. We use our phone to pay for that same coffee. And, as if that wasn’t weird enough, we touch our computers. The age of the iPhone and iPad has opened up an infinite range of possibilities for us to physically interact with the digital. But, as many have lamented, we are still holding back from rich gestural expression… perhaps because of the glassy barrier, but probably more so because of our tethers back to the point-and-click world of the mouse.
In this 10-minute session, I will use an interactive app/article as the centerpiece of comparing standard touch-based input in iOS with some simply engineered “metagestures”… leading us quickly, and inexorably toward a direct comparison with musical gesture and how MIDI might provide a framework for us to think about touch in terms of Rhythm, Cadence, ADSR envelopes, Blind Gestures, Symbolic Gestures, Physical Mimicry, Continuous Metadata, and more! (time permitting) It’ll be the 10 minutes that people will talk about over beers!
