Chris O'Shea's Work - Open Source

I caught a short talk By Chris O'Shea and chatted to him afterwards because I found the ideas behind his work explained some of the things that bother me about lots of Interactive work. He talked about how important open source ideas are to him.

He started out aiming to make an interactive music controller and explore how tactile controls enhance how we use sound but became increasingly frustrated because there was little shared knowledge about how things like this are made.

He says that most producers have their own approach and there's a lot that's not compatible. It's like most other developers want to preserve their ownership and just show things in galleries not really including others in their work.

So a big part of his work is to share the developments he makes and possibly to develop standards for communication between elements. "There's nothing new needed for what I'm doing, things like camera tracking and mapping properties but if everyone has to start afresh we keep getting stuck at the technology then it takes a long time for a new user to move beyond the most basic sounds."