Bruno Zamborlin's invention, Mogees, turns everyday objects into musical instruments

Picture this. 

It is a warm night, and on an island in Mexico an orchestra in white tie sits playing Stravinsky under the stars. Across the lake, which is carrying the sound, an audience in neat, seated rows is absorbed by the music and by the spectacular lights that are playing across the island's trees - lumiere for the son. But the evening is about to become even more magical... For when a break comes between movements, the orchestra quietly puts down its traditional musical instruments - the clarinets go back on their stands, the cellos balance on their sides - and continues the symphony by playing the trees instead. 

This is one of several projects - this one potentially to be sponsored by a bank - that have been suggested to Bruno Zamborlin, a 29-year-old Italian drummer who is completing a computer science PhD at Goldsmith's College and the Pompidou Centre in Paris, since his TEDx talk (below) about Mogees.

In essence the technology is a microphone that can be attached to any hard surface, which can then be played in a variety of ways: it detects all movement around it. The output can be programmed, using related software, by the player in advance and what can be produced is, therefore, bounded only by the player's imagination.

The TEDx talk has been watched more than 8,000 times on YouTube but judging by the number of commissions that have come Zamborlin's way, it's likely that a large number of these views were by people working in the creative industries. For this is a technology with a million potential applications.

The last time I saw Zamborlin he was too busy to talk because he was doing a demonstration at an evening organised by MC Saatchi ad agency to promote Peroni beer by association with the work of world-beating Italian expats - of whom there are a great number for reasons he explained succinctly, if sadly. "Nothing in Italy works. People leave."

But when asked about Mogees' applications, the first thing Zamborlin mentioned was music teaching. "There is usually a gap between starting to play music and enjoying it, simply because it doesn't sound good. During that period a lot of children give up or come to the conclusion that they'll never be able to do it. But Mogees is really nice to play even if you don't really know how to - it allows you to improve your skills without making any terrible sounds."The hope is that Mogees will encourage musical confidence, building music into the lives of those it touches.

Accordingly, the EU has provided a grant to manufacture the system for classroom use, at a cost of around £1 per microphone. That's one above, attached to a railing that temporarily became an instrument for demo purposes, along with the iPhone that is running the software.

There was also an installation for the Italian kitchenware company Alessi, which had Zamborlin turn some of their products into a musical instrument for promotional purposes, much as he does with the bicycle in the video above.

And then there are the wider applications of the technology, which is known as EAVI - "embodied audio visual interaction" - for the group of talented researchers working in the same field. One of Zamborlin's colleagues, Mick Grierson, has been working with handicapped children and told me: "I've been working with some boys aged 12-14 at Whitefield School and Centre, who are very seriously affected by their autism: they are non-verbal, sometimes violent and with extreme repetitive behaviour.

"I worked with them to develop a sound and music system for the iPad called "Sonic Scrapbook" and an interactive squeezable interface for sound recording and manipulation. I developed the interface because although most people find iPad touch screens easy to use, the people we were working with didn't always get along with it.

"These new interfaces [can't] make them less autistic, I think it's pretty clear that this is impossible. What you can do is make them feel that their choice is important, and that whatever they do can have an impact on the world. From talking to teachers and carers, this is a good thing you can try and do for people who have autism."

There is also talk that the EAVI technology has been used by researchers in the US for military purposes connected with the sighting of tank guns: as I say when you can programme the output of a device to be anything you would like it to be, the practical uses to which it can be put are limited only by the user's imagination.

* Bruno Zamborlin will be producing an installation at Rich Mix on Bethnal Green High Road at the beginning of May 2014. In the mean time you can contact him here and follow him on Twitter @brunozamborlin

* If you enjoyed this post, would you also be interested in reading about how music is a political force in Afghanistan?

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More Like Trees and Band of Horses at Green Man

There was a moment at Green Man, sitting on a bale of straw outside a beer tent in the sunshine, when a bubble from a stall quite a long way away that seemed entirely devoted to blowing them, landed directly in front of us and burst, leading to the smoke that unexpectedly turned out to be filling it breaking in little crawling waves over the grass. I was sitting with a friend and when it was over we just looked at each other, slightly amazed, then looked around, only to see that the lady sitting on the next bale along had also seen it and was also amazed. We all sat there for a little while looking mildly amazed at each other.

Green Man was full of these kinds of episodes: more than any other festival I've been to, it was visually spectacular, as much in the detail - a night time parade of girls with umbrellas lit like blue phosphorescent jellyfish, the quality of the programming in the Einstein science garden where among other things there was a demonstration of a technology called Mogees - as the bigger picture.  From the grounds of the Glanusk estate themselves, which have a beautiful natural arena that could have been landscaped with a music festival in mind; to the mountain stage that seems to crop out of the ground itself, echoing the shape of the peak behind it; to the enormous green man statue inside which festival-goers were encouraged to tie labels with their wishes written on them for burning on the last night ("Don't climb into the green man!" I wanted to tell the people doing exactly that. "Haven't you seen the movie about his wicker friend?") there was just nothing ordinary about the place. Even the rain felt sweet.

And then, inevitably, there was the mobile phone relay station, clearly visible on the mountainside above, quietly letting the proceedings down by failing to cope with the heavy 3G traffic: it failed after six hours on the Thursday and it would have been in keeping if it had exploded spectacularly as 10,000 people gazed in its general direction over the main stage. The festival wifi also conked out. Just saying: one day in the not-too-distant future, the technology will catch up with us and we will take it for granted. I, for one, am looking forward to that day.

Musically there were a couple of things that stood out for me. I'd only heard of Band of Horses before this weekend - I realise I'm coming late to this one - and they said something during their set that suggested they're not used to headlining festivals. This was almost certainly modesty - the evidence suggested otherwise - but either way they were wonderful: a proper rock band making the noises of the southern USA. They were in turns anthemic, harmonising and complex but never less than uplifting. Bliss.

And then on the Sunday afternoon in the Chai Wallah tent at the top of the site there were this lot - More Like Trees - who seemed to come out of nowhere (London, in fact, via New Zealand) but had me heading for the guy with the CDs in his canvas shoulder bag after two tunes.

One of them played flamenco guitar against the most unlikely accompaniment and wore a tin hat that could have come straight out of Mash or Catch 22 - let's call him Guitarian, though his name actually turned out to be Joshua Whitehouse. Afterwards I asked him "You're more like trees than what?" and got this answer: "We're more like trees than leaves. Leaves fall from the branches and have no responsibility to the place they came from. Whereas we are more like the trees themselves. We're very rooted." He clenched his fists and made a hunkering down gesture, acting what he meant.

They were entrancing. The festival was magic. My heart aches for it already in a way that only the mild exhaustion of several nights under canvas can produce.

* If you'd like to receive posts from this blog directly into your Facebook newsfeed, you could *like* its Facebook page and then use the drop-down menu to indicate that it's one of your "interests". This will enhance the possibility that you'll get them. You could also follow me on Twitter @emma1hartley