Speaker
Description
Breathing is an increasingly being explored as an alternative input technique and is intrinsically linked to sound production. The sound of breath is directly affected by our emotional and physiological state while fine conscious control of the breath-sound loop is possible, as demonstrated by wind instrument players. Despite this, breath as an input technique has not received much attention in sonic interaction design. To understand how to design using breath as an input modality for sonic interactions, we designed a technology probe that can facilitate the playful exploration of breath as a sonic interaction technique and elicit early qualitative feedback. To establish a tight coupling between breath and sonic feedback, weimplemented an interaction based on the metaphor of creating bubbles in a liquid by blowing into a straw. The user is asked to breathe into the microphone and breathing intensity is sensed based on the devicemicrophone signal. This is used to simulate air flow through the straw and into the liquid. A simplified parametric real-time model simulates bubble formation and synthesizes the resulting bubble sounds. Thefinal prototype is a mobile phone app that can sense breath, create bubbles of different sizes, simulate their sound, and provide visual feedback on the bubble life-cycle. We present early reflections andpreliminary results from a small-scale qualitative evaluation. Participants naturally experimented with breathing intensity and described the interaction as engaging and playful. Based on the comments, we discuss how to approach the intricacies of coupling breath to sound in digital interfaces in future research.