SWARMED: Captive Portals, Mobile Devices, and Audience Participation in Multi-User Music Performance

Audience participation in computer music has long been limited by resources such as sensor technology or the material goods necessary to share such an instrument. A recent paradigm is to take advantage of the incredible popularity of the smart-phone, a pocket sized computer, and other mobile devices, to provide the audience an interface into a computer music instrument. In this paper we discuss a method of sharing a computer music instrument’s interface with an audience to allow them to interact via their smartphones. We propose a method that is relatively cross-platform and device-agnostic, yet still allows for a rich user-interactive experience. By emulating a captive-portal or hotspot we reduce the adoptability issues and configuration problems facing performers and their audience. We share our experiences with this system, as well as an implementation of the system itself.