FanRows is a browser-based system for embodied sound interaction, developed as both a research-driven platform and a creative tool for artists.
Instead of triggering sounds with gestures, participants navigate and reshape evolving sound environments through posture, movement, stillness, and duration.
The clip shows a short excerpt from a live FanRows session in which body movement continuously reshapes the sound space.
You stand in front of a camera.
You slowly raise your arm.
The sound becomes brighter.
When you become still, the sound field stabilizes.
When you move differently, the atmosphere reorganizes.
In FanRows, movement does not trigger sounds.
It continuously reshapes a living sound environment.
Every change in posture or motion slightly alters the sound space.
Most interactive audio systems are event-based:
a gesture triggers a sound.
FanRows works differently.
Instead of triggering sounds, the system continuously interprets qualities of movement
— such as speed, stability, direction, and duration —
and uses them to reshape multiple layers of sound.
Sound is not executed.
It behaves like a dynamic field that continuously responds to the body.
FanRows operates as a continuous feedback system.
Body influences sound.
Sound influences perception.
Perception influences movement.
This creates a circular interaction process rather than a command-based interface.
Over time, the interaction can develop:
FanRows treats sound not as a fixed composition, but as a space that can be navigated and reshaped through movement.
For artists:
FanRows offers a continuous sound environment shaped by movement rather than discrete control.
For researchers:
The system provides a real-time environment for investigating embodied regulation, state transitions, and dynamic coupling between body and sound.
FanRows is an independent, research-driven system developed around:
It can also be understood as an applied second-order cybernetic system in which body movement and sound continuously influence one another.
Early studies focus on how stable interaction patterns and emergent dynamics develop over time within this body–sound feedback loop.
The technical structure and system architecture are documented here:
FanRows — Continuous Embodied Audio Interaction
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