Fireside Resonance

Fireside Resonance is an interactive performance installation that asks a simple question: what if the devices that isolate us became instruments that unite us?

Participants gather around a central "hearth" — a fire display with crackling audio — and are handed either an Orb or a Shaker: hand-built instruments that conceal phones inside lasercut cardboard and soft fabric. Tilting, shaking, and moving these objects triggers sounds tuned to a C Major pentatonic scale, so every participant plays in harmony regardless of skill.

Three separate p5.js applications handle the orb, shaker, and fire experiences. Inputs — tilt, acceleration, touch — control screen colour, animation, and sound synthesis in real time. The performance ends with a Nokia ringtone: a deliberate reminder of what's inside the object, and what we've temporarily forgotten.

The design draws on Allison Parrish's concept of epoché — decontextualising familiar technology to remove its stress associations — and Amber Case's Calm Technology principles, building an experience that needs minimal instruction but produces maximum shared presence.

Team: Gillian Blekkenhorst, Paul Van Rijn, Yudi Cao, Joshua Pothen