CHET – Collective Hedonistic Environments Toolkit

a project by intolight

CHET is a computer software toolkit for the easy collaborative creation of body-reactive environments. The digital tools enable artists and visitors to give up their fronting positions of authors or users and rather work together creatively.
Once set up in public spaces, for instance festivals, the input of motion-sensing-data and other interfaces opens the system to everybody, playing around and getting involved.
With a comparatively easy-to-use software patch, interactive sounds and graphics can be created almost instantaneously.
Club music, droning soundscapes, real-time 3D graphics and visual effects will change immediately as people walk around or dance and celebrate - all creating one surrounding atmosphere. This is where conjoint art expressions arise from a collective hedonistic process.
In this context, CHET is rather the paintbrush, the canvas and the drawing lesson than the actual painting.

ECAS jury statement about CHET

intolight want to change the relationship between performance and audience, by enabling the audience to use their body movements to play with sound and image. Their current project CHET is a software toolkit for the easy collaborative creation of body-reactive environments at festivals and public events.
After announcing their project at CTM (Feb / Berlin), intoLIGHT will present a two day public event ('lab') to field-test the platform at FutureEverything (May / Manchester), and present the complete project at a large scale public event at CYNETART (November / Dresden).
These multi-author environments work like modular music instruments. People will be able to bring their individual audio and video content and meet for audiovisual jam sessions. With a comparatively easy-to-use software patch, interactive sounds and graphics can be created almost instantaneously. Once set up in public spaces, the input of motion-sensing-data and other interfaces opens the system to everybody, playing around and getting involved. Club music, droning soundscapes, real-time 3D graphics and visual effects will change immediately as people walk around or dance and celebrate - all creating one surrounding atmosphere. Using their body movements they can play with an environment which they have spontaneously developed or refined themselves. For intolight, this is where conjoint art expressions arise from a collective hedonistic process.
Developed by an open source community, the software prototype consists of a sophisticated patch of tracking data, as well as graphic and sound modules.
intolight see festivals as the room for the fertile creative interaction among visitors. They wish to create a platform that promotes the easy exchange and collaboration among different visual and acoustic disciplines. Their aim is to supply a technical framework with which audiovisual, body-reactive environments can be created and applied, at one go.
intolight is a group of musicians, vjs, media artists and product designers. In different constellations intolight have realised a variety of media art projects – ranging from interactive environments to participative performances of contemporary dance and interactive setups for the club dancefloor.