Soul Train Machine

An homage to Black vernacular dance

Concept

Soul Train Machine is a body tracking app where the users control music through their dance. The app pays homage to the long-running Black American tv show, Soul Train, that showcased the music, dance, and fashion of the day. Much of the music used in the project comes from free libraries which are often sourced from studio sessions. The project seeks to shed light onto contributions of Black artists to the world of interactive music design and highlight the cultural connection between dance, music, and AI.

How it works

Using a webcam and an AI model trained on common dance moves, different poses trigger different instruments and musical flourishes through the Tone.js library.

Soul Train Machine flowchart — A flowchart illustrating the architecture of Soul Train Machine.

Context

Presented as a proposal for an online installation. The full deck can be viewed here.

Credits

Created by Mary Notari
Special thanks to Lisa Jamhoury