Giuseppe Torre,∗ Kristina Andersen,† The Hands: The Making of a and Frank Balde´ † ∗Room CS2-007 Digital Media & Arts Digital Musical Instrument Research Centre Department of Computer Science & Information Systems University of Limerick Limerick, Ireland [email protected] †Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM) Achtergracht 19 Amsterdam, 1017 WL, Netherlands {kristina, fgb}@steim.nl Abstract: Michel Waisvisz’s The Hands is one of the most famous and long-lasting research projects in the literature of digital music instruments. Consisting of a pair of data gloves and exhibited for the first time in 1984, The Hands is a pioneering work in digital devices for performing live music. It is a work that engaged Waisvisz for almost a quarter of a century and, in turn, has inspired many generations of music technologists and performers of live music. Despite being often cited in the relevant literature, however, the documentation concerning the sensor architecture, design, mapping strategies, and development of these data gloves is sparse. In this article, we aim to fill this gap by offering a detailed history behind the development of The Hands. The information contained in this article was retrieved and collated by searching the STEIM archive, interviewing close collaborators of Waisvisz, and browsing through the paper documentation found in his personal folders and office. ...it was very restrictive and very difficult the composer relentlessly for 25 years of his life, too ...but it was a huge lesson! little in the way of documentation or records of this —Michel Waisvisiz, 24 April 2007 effort is available. Waisvisz believed that the magic of a performance can be communicated only live, Michel Waisvisz (1949–2008) was a composer, not in a recording (Waisvisz 1999). Faithful to this inventor, and music technologist. He is best known credo, he recorded and published only a few works as the inventor and performer of The Hands, a in the later years of his life. Preferring to work as pioneering digital musical instrument (DMI) made an artist, rather than as an academic, he neither of two data gloves that enabled him to create and wrote about nor documented his work in detail in control elements of a musical performance in real a scholarly setting. Even the text documentation time. His work was conducted at a time where a retrieved from his archive is scarce and fragmented. number of DMI projects were being developed at the It is clear that Waisvisz’s attitude towards restless, Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music (STEIM) in cutting-edge experimentation and artistic creativity Amsterdam (Ryan 1991; Waisvisz, Ryan, and Collins made him see the work of archival as a tedious job to 1993; Wanderley, Battier, and Rovan 2000; Miranda always be postponed to a later date. Still, The Hands and Wanderley 2006) and an approach was emerging remains one of the most-cited and most-famous where effort and expression were linked to become works in the DMI literature. a central design guideline (Ryan 1992). Waisvisz’s The aim of this article is to provide detailed performances with The Hands have inspired gen- insight into The Hands and the history of its erations of music technologists, researchers, live development. The information contained in this performers, and the diverse audience of the New In- article was retrieved and collated by searching the terfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) community STEIM archive, interviewing Waisvisz’s closest that Waisvisz himself helped to establish in 2001. collaborators, and browsing through the paper Although the development of The Hands engaged documentation found in Waisvisz’s personal folders and office. We are grateful to Andreas Otto for his Computer Music Journal, 40:2, pp. 22–34, Summer 2016 doi:10.1162/COMJ a 00356 collaboration with Kristina Andersen in sorting c 2016 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. through this vast collection of material. We do so, 22 Computer Music Journal Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/COMJ_a_00356 by guest on 28 September 2021 Table 1. Summary of Sensors Used in Each Version of The Hands Version 1 Version 2 Version 3 Left Right Left Right Left Right Momentarypushkeys191725253030 Mercuryswitches 444444 Ultrasonic receivers 1 – 3 – 3 – Ultrasonic transmitter – 1 – 1 – 1 Clip cardioid microphone – – 1 – 1 – Pressure sensors – – 2 1 2 2 Potentiometer – 1 – – 1 – Four-character display board – – – 1 – 1 acknowledging that it is difficult to summarize theater and live performance that dated back to late 25 years of work in a short article. In that regard, 1960s. As such, he found the beauty of sound in its we invite the interested readership to complement extemporary development rather than in the calcu- the reading of this article with the online version lated construction of a recording studio (Waisvisz of Waisvisz’s archive, which is currently being 2003). The availability of cheaper personal comput- updated at http://crackle.org. This article is not ers and the public release of the MIDI protocol in aimed at addressing the artistic praxis of Michel 1983 immediately opened a wide range of possibil- Waisvisz. As a consequence, we have left much of ities for the live control of synthesizers. Waisvisz the detail of this process for future publications. saw the enormous potential that the technology of Nevertheless, we hope that this article will offer the the time offered, and this gave rise to an intense interested audience some depth, clarifications, and period of experimentation that engaged him for a historical perspective on the technical work of one decades to come. As with probably all projects that the most important pioneers of experimental DMI manage to have a significant and long-lasting cul- live performances. tural impact, it goes without saying that the results of his effort would have been impossible without STEIM and The Hands the involvement of many artists and engineers. The initial prototype of The Hands was developed by Michel Waisvisz with engineer Johan den Biggelaar, Michel Waisvisz was a member of STEIM since and later improvements were made with the help 1969, and he directed it from 1981 to 2008. STEIM, of Wim Rijnsburger, Hans Venmans, Peter Cost, founded on 27 February 1969 by a group of Dutch Bert Bongers, Frank Balde,´ Tom DeMeijer, Maurits composers (Misha Mengelberg, Louis Andriessen, Rubinstein, Jorgen Brinkman, and David Bristow. Peter Schat, Dick Raaymakers, Jan van Vlijmen, Reinbert de Leeuw, and Konrad Boehmer) was set up as a research lab for artists to investigate the Hardware Development of The Hands possibilities of using electronics in the musical domain. It is at STEIM in the early 1980s that The first version of The Hands dates from 1984. Michel Waisvisz began his preliminary research on Waisvisz released two more versions of The Hands, The Hands, which he would then publicly perform in 1990 and 2000. The second and third versions of and present for the first time in 1984. The Hands The Hands presented similar structural design to originated from an idea of developing more tactile the first. Each version, however, adopted a different and immediate ways to approach the creation and number of sensors, a number that appears to have manipulation of electronic sounds. Waisvisz was, steadily increased up to the most recent version in fact, a performer with a wealth of experience in (see Table 1). In the following section we offer an Torre, Andersen, and Balde´ 23 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/COMJ_a_00356 by guest on 28 September 2021 Figure 1. The Hands potentiometer (c), version 1. Right-hand data ultrasonic transmitter (d), glove on the left. Left-hand ultrasonic receiver (e), data glove on the right and mercury switches (f), and upside down. Labeled MIDI controller (g). (Photo components: MIDI splitter courtesy of Daniel Buzzo.) (a), pitch keys (b), overview of the sensor technology implemented in switches), and an R40-16 ultrasonic receiver. The each version of The Hands. This is then followed by right-hand data glove had 17 C&K MP01 momen- a description of the hardware and software developed tary push keys, one potentiometer, four mercury ad hoc to complement the DMI system. switches, and a T40-16 ultrasonic transmitter. Of the 19 keys on the left-hand data glove, 12 were placed in a 4×3 matrix configuration. We will refer The Hands Version 1 to these keys as “pitch keys” throughout this article. Their configuration allowed the index, middle, ring, The two data gloves in version 1 of The Hands (1984) and little fingers to control three keys in each row. were made of two metal plates (see Figure 1). One An identical configuration was provided for 12 of the plate rested on the palm of the hand. On this plate, 17 keys in the right-hand data glove. The remaining two elastic bands were attached to wrap and fix the seven keys for the left hand and five keys for the data glove on the performer’s hand and wrist. The right were controlled by the thumb of their respec- second metal plate was parallel and slightly lower to tive hands. The potentiometer on the right-hand the first one. This plate presented features similar to data glove was controlled by the thumb of the right a computer keyboard. Each data glove included the hand. following sensors. In 1990, and preceding the development of version The left-hand data glove had 19 C&K MP01 2 of The Hands, Waisvisz worked on the MIDI momentary push keys, 4 mercury switches (tilt Conductor, a simplified adaptation of the version 1 24 Computer Music Journal Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/COMJ_a_00356 by guest on 28 September 2021 Figure 2.