Australian researchers embedded sensors in the arms of a t-shirt to create a wearable musical instrument. Unlike the percussive "drum suit" that Laurie Anderson played in Home Of The Brave, this "wearable instrument shirt" (WIS) maps gestures to trigger audio samples. The Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) team's first demonstration of the technology is in the form of an air guitar. From the CSIRO Media Centre:
Textile motion sensors embedded in the shirt sleeves detect motion when the arm bends – in most cases the left arm chooses a note and the right arm plays it…
"The technology – which is adaptable to almost any kind of apparel – takes clothing beyond its traditional role of protection and fashion into the realms of entertainment and a wide range of other applications including the development of clothes which will be able to monitor physiological changes," (says textile and fiber technology researcher Richard Helmer).
