VR musical Instrument

Noise Drawers is an exploration of how games can allow players to experience musicianship.

The player stand in a four walled room, covered in drawers. There are three main kinds of drawer:
  • Tape drawers, when you open it, it plays an audio clip as it winds itself shut again.
  • Expressive drawers, where according to how fast or slow you open the drawer, the audio clip will be more or less intense.
  • Loop drawers, where the length of an open drawer signifies the volume of the audio loop coming from it.

Performance

Queerness
This VR piece is also designed with stage performance in mind. The player uses their whole body, and almost like a conductor, brings audio forward in expressive ways.
The player can be using large arm movement that can feel smooth and swooping, or they can use small and sharp movements. I will be consulting with choreographers on how to maximise the performance side of this work.
My first iteration of this instrument, uses music, dialogue, and sounds to explore my own gender. For example an Expressive Drawer when opened slowly may say "I've had a full week." and when opened hurriedly "I've suffered this week." This explores the way my gender effects how I communicate on a day to day basis. While also exploring how a player can explore expression.

Future?

Noise Drawers is supported by a small number of private investors. Future funding will be sort after once prototyping is complete.
There is an opportunity to make this experience open source, so other musicians and designers can put their own content in!
Developing a non-VR option is also on the cards.
There is also the option to iterate upon this myself, as a performance and composition series.