HARMONIC DRIVING

Of all Brain Opera activities, this will be most like a traditional video game.

Three separate "driving" units will be contained in a circular, translucent kiosk. Players are seated in front of a graphic screen, with a steering wheel, joystick, and foot pedal as controls.

Using specially-designed software, the player literally "drives" through a piece of music in one of three Harmonic Driving units. Like playing a traditional video game, the user negotiates onrushing paths and trajectories on a video screen, using a specially designed, spring-mounted steering column that measures turn and tilt and bend. Branches in the road - signaled by blue and orange barber poles - cause the music to become "cooler" or "hotter," and the player's micro-steering - whether rhythmic and precise or sinuous and meandering - makes the music become sharp-edged or atmospheric. Both path and music are updated on the fly as the player makes choices, and the consistency of these choices - or "conviction of the interpretation," if you will - is rewarded by a skill rating at the end of the run/piece.

Pictures you can download: [Harmonic Driving Art] [Computer rendition of Harmonic Driving] [The latest architectural design for Harmonic Driving] [An earlier architectural design for Harmonic Driving] [An earlier artistic design for Harmonic Driving]

Jump to the other experiences: forest , rhythm tree , gesture wall , melody easel .