Tattoo sound controller that reads like sheet music

Russian multimedia artist, Dmitry Morozov, has developed a Tattoo Sound Controller called “Read My Body” that emits musical sounds through tattoos. Just like a person reads the sheet music of a song and performs it on a musical instrument, this device is placed on a person’s arm with a customized, readable tattoo. The ‘instrument’ contains a slot for the hand to hold it, a railing for the machine to slide on, and integrated black line sensors that move along the arm with a stepper motor to read the music that the tattoo has printed. There is a 3D Wii remote with OSCulator protocol for control purposes when the hand moves around freely. A Nord Modular G2 and Symbolic Sound Kyma X were also employed in the creation of this device. The contraption uses arduino nano to run efficiently. 

The tattooed ‘sheet music’ has been customized to work solely with this apparatus. The artist can monitor the sensors’ movements to produce many variations of sound.  With these sounds, many songs can be produced as the tattoo is designed to contain large time slots between sound triggers.  The instrument can also be programmed to run independently without manual control.

Morozov depicts this innovation as an instrument that “combines human body and robotic system into a single entity that is designed to automate creative process in an attempt to represent the artist and his instrument as a creative hybrid.” Prior to the development of this instrument, Morozov constructed various circuit-bent instruments, including “post code” that reads bar codes and translates them into music.

With this endeavor, Morozov wanted to “represent the artist and his instrument as a creative hybrid.”

Story via vtol