Glitch Delighter: Lighter's Flame Base Hyper-Instrument for Glitch Music in Burning The Sound Performance

Glitch DeLighter is a HyperInstrument conceived for Glitch music, based on the idea of using fire expressiveness to digitally distort sound, pushing the body and primitive ritualism into a computer mediated sound performance. Glitch DeLighter uses ordinary lighters as physical controllers that can be played by creating a flame and moving it in the air. Droned sounds are played by sustaining the flame and beats by generating sparks and fast flames. The pitch of every sound can be changed moving the flame vertically in the air. This is achieved by using a custom computer vision system as an interface which maps the real-time the data extracted from the flame and transmits those parameters to the sound generator. As a result, the flame visual dynamics are deeply connected to the aural perception of the sound ‘the sound seems to be burning’. This process establishes a metaphor dramaturgically engaging for an audience. This paper contextualizes the glitch music aesthetics, prior research, the design and development of the instrument and reports on Burning The Sound– the first music composition created and performed with the instrument (by the author).