For the past four years, British musician Imogen Heap has been working on a wearable interactive musical control project called The Gloves Project.
Photo: Fiona Garden
The Gloves incorporate bend sensors and accelerometers to capture movement and gesture data, which is then sent wirelessly to the software of your choice. Built on open source platforms, the gloves are intended to be re-designed, hacked and improved upon.
No stranger to wearable tech, Imogen Heap is working, with a talented team of developers and designers contributing to the project. Development has also benefited from collaborative contributions in the form of workshops and an artist-in-residence programme. Iterations of the gloves’ development can be seen on their progress blog.
The project has its roots firmly in DIY innovation, but the team want to start a limited production run as part of ongoing development. They’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign, to raise funds, although if you want to get your hands on (in?) a completed glove, you’ll have to pledge upwards of £1200. DIY kits are available for quite a bit less, reflecting the huge amount of labor that goes into building a product of this caliber.
The open development process is an interesting one and I hope they reach their Kickstarter goal!
