FanRows is a browser-based platform for embodied sound interaction.
Body movement continuously shapes responsive sound environments — directly in the browser, using a standard webcam.
For artists, performers, sound exploration, and embodied-interaction research.
The clip shows a short excerpt from a live FanRows session, where changes in body movement become part of an evolving relationship between movement and sound.
Camera processing, movement analysis, and real-time audio processing happen locally on your device. Camera images and the movement data derived from them are not uploaded by FanRows.
FanRows does not identify people or infer emotions, intentions, health status, personality traits, or psychological states. Body movement is used only as input to the interactive sound and visual system.
Many interactive audio systems are event-based: a gesture starts a sound, a hand movement activates a sample, or a pose switches an effect.
FanRows works differently. It continuously derives changing movement signals from the body and maps them into an evolving sound environment. Speed, stability, direction, posture, joint relationships, and duration can influence several sound properties at the same time.
A shoulder angle might gradually bring a texture into the mix; body velocity might change its character; torso lean may reshape another layer; stillness can allow slower sonic changes to emerge.
The mapping can be asymmetric. One movement does not need to correspond to one parameter, and left and right do not have to mirror each other. The intention is not to turn the body into a collection of virtual sliders, but to create relationships that can be explored, learned, revisited, and combined in different ways.
FanRows forms a body–sound feedback loop: movement changes the sound, the changed sound affects perception, and perception can influence what happens next in the body.
This relationship is central to the project. The participant is not simply operating an interface from the outside, but becomes part of an evolving interaction in which movement and sound affect one another over time.
Recurring movement–sound relationships can emerge through exploration. Some may become familiar and repeatable, while others remain open enough to invite new movement.
FanRows treats sound not as a fixed composition, but as a space that can be navigated and reshaped through movement.
A FanRows session such as Ambient combines several movement signals derived continuously from body tracking. Shoulder and elbow angles can reveal or reshape individual sound layers, while torso movement and body velocity influence other aspects of the overall sonic character. These relationships are not presented as a list of instructions. They are discovered through movement.
A particular posture may expose a texture. A repeated arm movement may return to a familiar sonic state. A different combination of joint angles may reveal another relationship. Slowing down or becoming still can change how the sound develops. The mappings remain stable enough to be explored and revisited without reducing the body to a set of one-to-one controls.
Other FanRows sessions can use the same underlying system with different sound material, movement mappings, and interaction qualities. The aim is not to define one universal gesture language, but to create distinct responsive sound environments with their own character and possibilities.
This also makes FanRows relevant to movement artists, dancers, and choreographers. Movement does not have to follow a predefined choreography or gesture vocabulary. A performer can improvise, repeat a motion, hold a position, or change direction and hear how those choices affect the surrounding sound. FanRows can therefore become a space for sound and movement improvisation, where movement influences sound and the changing sound can in turn affect the next movement.
For artists — FanRows offers a movement-responsive environment for performance, installation, ambient music, sound art, and audiovisual work: a space of relationships to design rather than a fixed sequence of musical events. Ambient producers and sound artists can explore how sound material becomes an interactive environment on Create Sound Spaces →
For movement artists, dancers and choreographers — FanRows creates a different relationship between movement and sound. Body tracking is not limited to recognizing poses or activating musical events; movement can influence the sonic environment throughout a performance. This opens possibilities for interactive sound for dance, movement-based sound, embodied performance, movement improvisation, and experimental choreography. The body–sound relationship itself can become material for exploration.
For researchers — FanRows provides a real-time environment for investigating embodied interaction and perception–action coupling: how does an unfamiliar movement–sound relationship start to feel predictable? Can repeated interaction produce stable patterns without explicit instruction? How does perception change when sound responds to the dynamics of the body?
Technically — FanRows runs directly in the browser using a standard webcam, without requiring specialized motion-capture hardware or a separate installation. The same underlying system can support different sound rooms, movement mappings, and audiovisual behaviors.
FanRows sits at the intersection of embodied interaction, cybernetic feedback systems, and non-symbolic interface design. Real-time body tracking provides the raw spatial information from which FanRows derives continuous movement signals. These signals are used not to classify a person, but to shape the evolving relationship between movement and sound. A shoulder angle is treated as a physical relationship that evolves over time rather than as a discrete command; stillness can be as relevant as movement.
Early testing focuses on how stable interaction patterns, exploration, perceptual adaptation, and emergent dynamics develop through repeated interaction.
The technical structure and system architecture are documented here: View System Architecture →
FanRows — Continuous Embodied Audio Interaction
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