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Electroshock Technology Leads to Human Drum Machine Puppet

This article is over 13 years old and may contain outdated information

A musician has used some technological wizardry to turn his friend into a cringing human drum machine.

In recent years, Daito Manabe has been uncomfortably fusing electric stimulus with music. His experiments have advanced to the point where now one of Manabe’s friends has become a human drum machine.

Manabe’s latest video uses myoelectric sensors in combination with electric stimulus to jolt the friend’s face into reacting when a sound is played from a drum machine. Wires are evidently attached from Manabe’s fingers to a drum machine, which are hooked up to the wires running to the face. The first part of this video is a demonstration, while the second part brings the drum machine into play.

Each sound is connected to a particular sensor, so when Manabe touches his friend’s skin it makes him cringe, blink, or pucker his lips. All of the sounds played in quick succession make the subject’s face tweak and twinge, almost violently. However, it’s apparently not as painful as it looks.

Having control over a human’s facial movements is entertaining enough, but when it’s combined with the sounds coming out of a drum kit it adds another level of humor. At the same time, Manabe’s work on the project is technologically impressive. Expect more like this from Manabe in the future.

Source: Gizmodo

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