What makes tónandi by Sigur Rós’ Tónandi such an exciting mixed reality experience for the Magic Leap One?
Before I begin, I want to let you know that I don’t own the Magic Leap One nor I tried the experience on this device. My shared impressions are based on what I’ve seen on videos, yet I still wanted to share my thoughts about it with you.
First of all, let’s start with the fact that I didn’t know that sigur rós is an Icelandic avant-rock band from Reykjavik. So now at least I understand a bit more about its creator. When translating each word into English from Icelandic: “sigur” means victory and “rós” means rose, at least that how Google Translate translated it. I have no idea what tónandi means. When you google it you see only things related to that app and google translates it to the same word.
I’ve visited the band’s website at sigur-ros.co.uk website. On the main page, they talk about the collaboration with Magic Leap. They explain that they have been working closely with Magic Leap for five years now, exploring and expanding the frontiers of musical creation within mixed reality.
Tónandi is a musical app that uses spatial sound and enables user interaction that can affect the music as the user interacts with the abstract virtual elements that start occupying the real world 3D space. Sounds are represented as elegant and enchanted visual cues that are not just there for the user to see, but also to touch. In the app, you get that message: “The control is no longer required. You are now free to explore Tonandi with your hands, eyes, and bod…. be curious.”.
It’s like being able to touch music with your hands and fingers and by touching the visuals and changing the music, you can feel a strong bond between yourself and the music. It’s like having a personal relationship with the music that surrounds you, it’s a unique audio-visual experience like no other.
This mixed reality experience touches some of the key features of the Magic Leap One headset, including making use of hand recognition, seamless and continuous meshing, and 3D spatial sound among others.
This experience doesn’t require any pre-scan of the environment you run the app at. The meshing is done in the background as the user moves and look around him. The visual effects are drawn on current objects in a very subtle and cuddle way, making you feel the bond between the virtual and the real world. It’s a calm, relaxing and inviting way to finally meet this new exciting technology in a very special and intimate way.
I think one of the most important aspects of this experience is the fact that you can actually touch and stir the virtual content. I knew if I tried it, I would be fascinated with the fact that finally, my hands are free and not that, I can actually use them to interact with the virtual content. For a person who tried hundreds of AR apps on his iPad, it would certainly feel a sense of freedom, like you are finally liberated from holding a mobile device in my hand, and as a developer, you would feel much less constraint and you slowly get to understand the freedom of creation that liberation brings.
Haptic feedback could elevate that experience so much more. I’m sure Magic Leap wanted to deliver an experience like no other, something that will wow the audience and have a long-lasting effect. By combining great visualization experience mixed with great musical experience and dynamics, Magic Leap was able to produce a truly original concept that touches our senses and also demonstrates the capabilities of its Magic Leap One headset.
There is a part where the visual effects look like a fire burning your place like a paper, it looked so beautiful. It feels like the virtual is starting taking control over your physical surroundings, this is a really amazing thing to see, the terms “Mixed” is manifested in its full brilliance. This is no longer just an exciting term that you’ve heard about thousands of times, it takes a true meaning and form right in front of your eyes.
Look at the part at 2;50 minutes.
That part feels a bit horrific like you are meeting with a supernatural being. This whole experience like it was designed to trigger many types of emotional, it was relaxing at first and then start getting more intense. I personally think that moments like this, those who are kind of horrific, have a very strong impact on us and stay with us longer. Once you hear that music again, those visual elements and that first Mixed Reality experience will come back to you in an instant. The effect of music on our emotions cannot be denied and it used beautifully here in this mixed reality app. By the time you finish with this app, you’ll definitely remember who Sigur Ros are and you’ll definitely associate that fantastical experience with the Magic Leap One. If the goal was to create a strong emotional impact, the missions seem to reach its goal.
Overall, I am very impressed with that app and I watch it over and over again (on the web, unfortunately). I hope that one day, I would be able to try it myself, rather than just analyze it through other people’s experiences. I’m sure that the effect would be many times stronger than how I perceive it through videos.