Shoes are the new turnables.

Or at least that’s the conclusion you might reach after watching a new Japanese campaign for Nike’s Free Run+ running shoes. Apparently wishing to tout the bendable qualities of its new footwear, Nike enlisted sound artists to transform its product into a musical instrument. The shoes get plugged in, switched on, and mixed up, battle-style, as they sense when the shoe is flexed or moved in space. And yes, everything you see in the video is real: the shoes really are controlling digital sound live. We even have the Max patch to prove it.

Lovers of experimental sound art will immediately recognize one of the Shoe-Js: it’s Daito Manabe, a bleeding-edge sound artist and alternative interface guru with a background in turntablism. I spoke to Daito, and convinced him to share the software that makes the project tick. Daito says he used flex sensors (see examples) and accelerometers to make the shoes interactive. He then processed the control signal and converted it to sound using the modular visual programming environment Max/MSP and Ableton’s Max for Live.

What’s striking to me about the Max patch is its elegance. For all the power of these interactive environments, sometimes they’re at the best when you do something really simple. In this case, that frees up someone like Daito to focus on the performance aspect.

Dig on the Nike shoe box speakers in the background!