Shira Miasnik | Product & UX

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KEE
Movement based digital instrument

KEE

Role

Product Manager & Creative Director, Owner

Product Description

KEE is one of my earlier works but is one that is very dear to me. It combines my passion for musical expression, new media arts, and the integration of traditional and innovative expertise. KEE is a digital instrument for the performing arts, creating sound and image interpreted from intuitive body movement. It creates a greater engaging experience for Audio Visual artists emphasizing the direct relation between the action of playing and the creation itself. My collaboration with engineers, wood specialists and various programmers resulted in two working prototypes and several visual outputs.

Impact

KEE received an 'Honorable mention' from the Taiwan International Design Competition and was published in the international design magazines: Canadian ‘Applied Arts’, Dutch ‘Items’, and Russian ‘K’.

The instrument

KEE is a wooden instrument, operating by tilt and rotation. It enables expression while playing, similar to the musical expression while playing traditional musical instruments.

Input / Output

KEE is using Bluetooth wireless technology, emphasizing the freedom of playing. It is connected directly to the computer without any mediator and can be linked to any commercial off the shelf interactive software, such as Max/Msp. KEE is composed of the wooden instrument, an optical movement sensor, Bluetooth communication, software translating the movement signal, and the audio-visual media that is projected and heard.

Playing live animation

Tilting and rotating the instrument in different direction and speed in the above example is reflected in the scale of the visual projected. The movement of KEE can define different parameters, for example visuals can change in position, scale, angle, color or speed. The player's creation is inherent with her/his state of mind and action.

2nd prototype blueprint

The 2nd prototype is smaller in size, and has a weight inside to enhance the tangible feedback the player senses while playing on KEE.