Imogen Heap’s Glove Project Launches a Kickstarter Campaign

Maker Camp attracts its share of renowned personalities with hidden (or not-so-hidden) maker tendencies. Last summer, I was lucky enough to talk with musician Imogen Heap about her work. It’s no secret that I’m a fan of her work, and when I heard she would be hanging out at Maker Camp, I called dibs before anyone could say a word. As we spoke, she let on about her newest endeavor, The Gloves Project.

Heap and a team of makers have been developing a pair of high-tech gloves, called the Mi.Mu, that will allow users to manipulate sounds via gestures, allowing a quite literally hands-on style of writing and performing. Last week they launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund development and distribution for the interactive, MIDI-manipulating gloves.

The gloves are equipped with several sensors that will record movement in space, positions of individual fingers and the twisting of the wrist. They also provide feedback in the form of a vibrating motor and an RGB LED to indicate which mode you are in and to help decipher where you are in space. These sensors feed in to their board (an x-OSC) which is also equipped with more sensors. The glove connects to your computer over wi-fi and can be used with several audio programs including Ableton Live, Logic Pro, and Max/MSP. The result is a visually stunning performance that you’ll want to emulate — you can see a video of Heap using the gloves to play the first song she composed on them below.

You may be thinking, where do I sign up? Well, if you head over to the Kickstarter page, you can reserve one for a pledge of just under $2,000 (or twice that for a pair). If that’s a bit steep, the team also released open-source plans for the gloves so you can make them yourself.