The word "hacking" may have negative connotations or whatnot, but MIT's Hacking Arts 2016 strives to prove otherwise. Last weekend's hackathon saw a multitude of hardware engineers, entrepreneurs, artists, and software developers gathered in Boston with an aim to "change the world through technology and arts." The event culminated with the app "Harmony Space" on top, a music-learning app that makes use of the system similar to Niantic's "Pokémon GO."
Hacking Arts 2016: What Is It About?
Hacking Arts is an event organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that encourages the values of innovation and entrepreneurship in order to enhance the future of technology and arts. This year's Hacking Arts 2016 offered a series of events that include a Tech Expo, Conference, and the Hackathon.
As stated on the Hacking Arts 2016 website, the industries supported by the event are as follows: Gaming, Film/Video, Fashion, Design, Performing Arts, Music, Visual Arts, and Augmented/ Virtual Reality. Out of 12 interdisciplinary teams, "Harmony Space" bagged the award for Best All-Around Hack. "Revive" and "MÖBEL" took first runner-up and second runner-up respectively, and "Inkfinity" was awarded Hacker's Choice.
Why Hacking Arts 2016 Chose "Harmony Space"
Hacking Arts 2016 winner "Harmony Space" is a musical learning app that uses the augmented reality capacities of the HoloLens. Like "Pokémon GO," the app allows users to remap spatial sense to auditory sense, allowing people to see specific locations of musical notes. The app backs up the theory that every location in space is a "possibly harmonic" spot. "Harmony Space" is a product of the geniuses of Evin Huggins, Matthew Seaton, and Max Harper.
TechCrunch reports that participating teams in Hacking Arts 2016 mostly incorporated music into their projects. Daniel Doubrobkine, CTO for Artsy and part of the judging panel, stated in an interview that sound design was a common denominator among competing groups with an integration of augmented reality. More information on Hacking Arts 2016 can be found at the official website.