Holophonor: Designing the visual music instruments of the future

Abstract

This chapter considers the technological feasibility of the Holophonor, a fictional audio-visual instrument from the science fiction cartoon Futurama. Through an extended discussion of the progression of visual music towards interactive models, it was proposed that the Holophonor is an example of an ideal visual music instrument and could be constructed in the near future. This chapter recapitulates the key features of the fictional instrument. An evaluation of the technological feasibility of building a real-world version of the Holophonor is then given, with reference to existing technologies. In particular, it is proposed that the Holophonor's ability to respond to the emotional state of the performer may be facilitated by drawing on approaches from HCI and affective computing. Following this, a possible architecture for the Holophonor is proposed.