_format-1500w.png)
Genki instruments: Products for Musicians, By Musicians
Genki Instruments have a simple philosophy: people shouldn’t change how they express themselves to fit the devices around them. Founded in 2015, Icelandic tech startup Genki Instruments develops products that make making music with technology feel natural. Their latest exhibition, ‘Making Waves’, debuted at Design March in Reykjavík last weekend, and was centred on Wave, a smart ring that allows musicians to control sound, shape effects and intuitive gestures through MIDI and Bluetooth. It won the Icelandic Design Award in 2019, and has been used by musicians worldwide to make music in an organic and natural way. During the exhibition at Ásmundarsalur (one of Reykjavík’s most-loved gallery spaces), it turned visitors into performers.
“We are humbled by the phenomenal response. An integral part of the exhibition was allowing show-goers to feel how expressive and responsive Wave is. We accomplished that by envisioning how it would look as part of an interactive artwork, where you get the chance to perform on stage as a rock star conductor.”
We’ve seen Genki Instruments in action in a few music-making scenarios over the past year, but seeing visitors being able to affect graphics and sound as they move through the space, was something truly wonderful – simple, yet effective, and oh so freeing. Another section of the exhibition showcased the process of designing Wave, from early idea, to prototypes, to final product. With six gestures, three programmable buttons and a battery life of over eight hours, discovering the history of this design was to discover a concentrated process that surprised and enthralled.
The Wave ring can be used for creating music via Bluetooth and MIDI with their wavefront technology, for you all you Eurorack users out there. You can learn more about Genki’s developments via their website and their Instagram.