App enables musician to control concert lighting and sound through crowd’s smartphones

Musician Dan Deacon is taking over the smartphones of fans at his live performances to turn them into part of the show.

We recently saw digital audience participation in action with the Stanley Piano, an automaton organ which takes requests from Twitter. Now musician Dan Deacon is taking over the smartphones of fans at his live performances to turn them into part of the show. Fans attending a concert on the experimental artist’s current tour, which is promoting his recent album America, can download the app from the App Store and Google Play before they head to the venue. When the show starts, all phones running the app can be controlled using sonic prompts – in much the same way as the Chirp app we recently covered. The musician can then synchronize the crowd’s phones to display the same color and make the LED lights flash in time with each other as part of the light show. Perhaps most interestingly, the smartphones can also be made to emit sound, becoming an extra instrument for the musician to play. The video below gives a demonstration of the app in action: The app offers a new way for the audience to become a part of the show – increasing engagement – and also exorcizes the stigma attached to fans holding their phone up at a concert. In what other areas could this technology be implemented? Spotted by: Murray Orange