Musical instruments really are a fun playground for interaction design. OWOW makes a set of MIDI controllers that differentiate themselves through unique gestural, embodied interactions. Wave your hand above a distance sensor to trigger a drum, rotate a 3DOF movement sensor to fade effects in and out, or scroll over a drawing to produce notes—some interactions might seem more useful than others, but it is inspiring to see how simple off-the-shelf electronic sensors can give rise to varied bodily interactions.

Since it is not uncommon to see this type of interaction design experimentation in musical instruments, perhaps there's something intrinsic to musical performance that lends itself well to this type of more exploratory, bodily …

The Mimu gloves are a musical input device. Through various continuous hand gestures the artist can control various musical effects, like high- or low-pass filters, panning, reverb, etc. Gestures can also be linked discrete controls, such as starting, stopping or dropping a recorded loop. On paper, it is a wearable MIDI controller, which instead of knobs and buttons uses bodily movement.

In practice, however, it enables something that's greater than the sum of its parts. It allows the artist, who might be singing a vocal part at the same time, to have detailed and accessible control over their sound. Instead of fiddling with an industrial controller filled with knobs and buttons, the Mimu gloves enable meaningful and expressive movement. …