Isadora allows input values to be changed in real time, allowing for endless variety and enabling the creation of systems that react to data from performers, viewers, generative algorithms, or one or more operators.
When creating your patch, properties can always be changed manually with the press of a key or a click of the mouse. Isadora was expressly designed to allow real-time changes in numerous ways, using sensors, data sent from a remote system, or even information pulled in from online sources like Twitter X. Motion and skeleton tracking using Isadora’s built-in tools is one popular way to influence media playback, effects, or projection mapping coordinates—just a few of many possibilities. Isadora offers a number of computer vision tools to provide powerful video analysis that can be used to control and/or create your performances and art installations.
The ways we have seen Isadora are beyond count. Of course, there are many users who employ it for performance art, installations, VJing, as well as the common use cases of theatrical, musical, and dance stage productions, but there are many who deploy it for applications we never expected. There have been advanced users to interface with Arduino-based robotics and sensors for use in escape room puzzles and others who have used Pythoner, JavaScript, or Data Array actors, for managing large sets of data interactively to control large, site-specific, light-based art installations as well as for gigantic displays at sports stadiums for handling the logic behind displaying team, game, and player information. One particularly fun example is a user that used a camera to track their goldfish’s movements, using the fish’s position to play different MIDI notes and thus enabling their beloved pet to become a little, aquatic musician. Our staff has used it in many unexpected ways that including Zoom chatbots, pitch-dark art installations that react to light being shined on specific spots on the wall, Halloween-themed art installations, and turning the human body into a video remote through the use of a motion-tracking suit and gesture recognition. These are all only a few examples of the infinite possibilities for interaction Isadora puts at your fingertips.