Drag to turn · scroll or pinch to zoom · right-drag or arrow keys to move

Kinetitude at Gallery Three

A working model for RMIT Gallery. Six people stand in the lit circle and draw in the air. Each gesture paints across the walls and plays a note in one shared pentatonic scale.

Show labels Camera and projector lines Animate

The pentatonic scale

Every player plays the same five notes: C · D · E · G · A (C major pentatonic). With no semitones between neighbouring notes, any combination sounds good together.

Each player is still unmistakably themselves: their own instrument, octave and rhythm. Height on the wall sets the pitch, speed sets how loud and how often notes sound, and stepping closer to the camera makes the tone brighter. A shared pulse keeps everyone in time, and on the first beat of each bar notes settle onto the current chord, so the six parts lock together.

Harmony now CC · E · G

Keys light up in the player's colour as each note plays. F and B, and all the black keys, are left out. The chord moves every two bars through C, A minor, D and G, using only these five notes.

Six players, six instruments

How it runs

Each player has their own camera on a low stand about 1.3 m in front of them. No headset, controller or touch.
Each camera has its own computer and projector, so the six drawings meet as one painting around the room.
Six instruments in one pentatonic scale, spread from bass to bells and held to one shared pulse, so whatever people do, the music holds together.
The six drawings spill past their own patches, round the corners and into each other, and fine threads tie nearby marks together. Over time it becomes one collective tangle. Older layers slowly ghost back but never fully disappear.
When a player steps away for 4 seconds, their drawing replays as an animation before the next person begins.
A plinth by the door holds the Canon SELPHY printer. Hold up the lime-green bat to print your latest drawing.
Computers sit in the store behind the far wall and restart themselves each night at 3:30 am.

Workshops

Drawings made by dancing, composing and drawing at once are printed on watercolour paper. Participants then work into them by hand with paint and pencil.

Gallery Three

8.08 × 5.32 m: Floor, about 40 m²
4.43 m: Wall height to the grey band
5.00 m: Overall height
1.80 × 2.49 m: Double doors from the hallway
Floor: Concrete, no fixings
Ceiling: No fixings, so projectors go on wall brackets

Room sizes from RMIT Gallery's plans and elevations for Gallery Three. Player, camera and projector positions are a proposal, scaled by eye from the plans and installation photos. The cameras for the doorway wall sit either side of the doors so people can still walk in.