Many musicians desire a way to integrate electronic sound into live, improvised performances to expand their sonic palette. Conversely, many electronic producers desire a way to present electronic music in a truly live context, to physicalise and visualise their music and improvise around structures produced in the studio.
The AirSticks are a new gestural audio-visual musical instrument designed to realise both these desires, allowing the triggering and manipulation of sound and graphics through body movement. The AirSticks reconnect body and sound, combining the physicality of acoustic performance with the endless possibilities of digital sound and graphics.
The AirSticks utilise VR controllers (without the headset), which output their position and orientation into a custom built software interface in order to control music and visuals.
For the past seven years, the AirSticks have been consistently redesigned and redeveloped for over one-hundred performances around the world, in ensembles and solo form, with musicians, choreographers and visual artists.
`Trigger Happy Visualised’ is a performance that is made possible by the latest and most ambitious iteration of the AirSticks, where a real-time visualisation system custom-built in Unity allows the simultaneous control of sound and graphics. The visuals are projected onto a scrim---a transparent screen placed in front of the performer---and are aligned to the performer's position and scale to create the illusion that the virtual environment and the performer's environment are one and the same.
The audience is invited into the imaginary world of the instrument, and the performer can see and interact directly with the projections situated between themselves and the audience.

Trigger Happy explores our relationship with technology, as the performer goes in and out of controlling the system. This performative platform invites audiences to question their own beliefs of what the technology is capable of.