We’ve just arrived home after a week in Austin, Texas, for SXSW, and what a week it has been. We played 4 fantastic gigs out there to some amazing crowds, so thank you if you were there for one of them. The Welsh gig at the British Music Embassy @ Latitude 30 was possibly the highlight. It was great to play with a handful of some of the best Welsh bands about! We will shortly have some video diaries of the European stint and of SXSW available on Youtube and here. Eyes peeled!

As many of you may know, we entered our AiR Guitar tee-shirt into SXSW’s interactive Accelerator competition. Were were initially lucky enough to make the last 8 out of hundreds of entrants, meaning that we got to take the concept with us for presentation at the Austin Convention Centre. Well, we won an award for it, so we have to thank FauvelKahn for their development and expertise on the project! Thanks to this award we have had TONS of press globally, meaning that thousands upon thousands of people around the world will have been playing AiR Guitar along to CCTV. Bit of a crazy thought, that one.

Next for us is a stint of writing and a week in the studio. If you’ve seen any of our shows this year there’s a chance you’ve heard our new song Emergency. We’re hoping to get this and a few more new songs down on record before we head out on our next tour in May with The Alarm. We’re very excited to be doing the UK tour with such an amazing band. Please check them out if you haven’t already!

That’s it for now! We’ll keep you posted on any news, as always!

Aron, Dave, Jonnie, Joey, Daf.

The Last Republic – Augmented Reality – Air Guitar from FK Create on Vimeo.

Legions of companies are preparing to show off their music apps and other technologies when the exhibit floor opens at SXSW Interactive on Monday, but already, a handful stand out from the pack. AiR Guitar, one of eight music finalists in the Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator, a months-long app contest with the final judging on Wednesday, makes an unlikely pairing out of air guitar and augmented reality — thus “AiR Guitar.”

To play, you must first don a T-shirt with an image of a guitar on it — or tape a printout of this guitar (.pdf) to your torso. Then fire up playairguitar.com, stand in front of your webcam, and follow the chord symbol from left to right. When it reaches the right side of the stream, strum your air guitar; if you’re on time, it’ll make a sound — sort of like Guitar Hero, except there’s no guitar.

The system relies on your webcam to understand when you’re strumming, which makes video recording a natural extra feature. You can choose to record your AiR Guitar performance, after which the app offers a link and embed code so you can share it with your friends.

There’s only one song for AiR Guitar so far, from Wales’ The Last Republic, but the opportunity clearly exists for more bands to launch their own AiR Guitar songs. Instead of selling a regular band T-shirt, they might follow The Last Republic’s example by putting a guitar on the shirt, giving their fans a (very) different way to play their music.

Air guitarists everywhere rejoice, you can now make some noise when you strum the air.

Welsh design team Fauvel Khan have found a neat way of marketing up and coming Welsh band The Last Republic. The team have produced an augmented reality T-shirt which features an image of a guitar with an Augmented Reality marker in the middle. Once logged into the Last Republic site you can ‘strum’ along to one of their tracks and win points.

In the spirit of testing things out, Design Wales had a go at the game last week… with mixed results… we were pretty terrible at it until a visitor popped by the office and showed us how it is done… unfortunately for him his score was logged under one of Design Wales’ team… so it seems that Gisele is actually quite a good air guitarist!

As previously mentioned on this blog, AR was mooted as a big technology trend for 2010. So far we have mainly seen it used to enhance print media and in mobile apps…will we see it featured on products beyond it’s novelty value?…I am still not sure…but what I am sure about is that it is quite good fun and the novelty hasn’t worn off quite yet!

The t-shirt works by using augmented reality technology. Wearers log onto the air guitar site, their web cam reads the symbol on their t-shirt interoperating every time the symbol on the t-shirt is interrupted as a note.

Inventors Luke Khan and Warren Fauvel are the only entry from Europe shortlisted for an international design award in Austin, Texas.

Jane Solomans met Luke to find out more about how the augmented reality system works.

Design company FauvelKhan, founded by Swansea Metropolitan students Luke Khan and Warren Fauvel, is in the running for the Music-Related Technologies accolade at the SXSW Accelerator event in Austin, Texas.

Its entry, the only one from the European Union, is an AiR Guitar, which turns a T-shirt into a playable musical instrument.

The T-shirt has a barcode-type symbol which, when picked up via a webcam, can trigger notes to be played on a computer.

The pair initially developed the idea as a promotional item for South Wales band The Last Republic, but hope it will now prove to be a hit across the music industry.
Mr Khan, an industrial design graduate from Cardiff, said: “It was a surprise to be the only European-based company shortlisted.

“To be selected for the final eight from 400 worldwide entries is testament to the creative and hard-working team we have.

“SXSW puts us on the world stage and it’s exciting to think of what this means for the company going forward.”

Design duo’s T-shirt up for award
A T-shirt which can be played like a guitar has been shortlisted for a technology award in the United States.

Design company FauvelKhan, founded by Swansea Metropolitan students Luke Khan and Warren Fauvel, is in the running for the Music-Related Technologies accolade at the SXSW Accelerator event in Austin, Texas.

Its entry, the only one from the European Union, is an AiR Guitar, which turns a T-shirt into a playable musical instrument.

The T-shirt has a barcode-type symbol which, when picked up via a webcam, can trigger notes to be played on a computer.

The pair initially developed the idea as a promotional item for South Wales band The Last Republic, but hope it will now prove to be a hit across the music industry.

Mr Khan, an industrial design graduate from Cardiff, said: “It was a surprise to be the only European-based company shortlisted.

“To be selected for the final eight from 400 worldwide entries is testament to the creative and hard-working team we have.

“SXSW puts us on the world stage and it’s exciting to think of what this means for the company going forward.”

 

Click to play

Luke Khan demonstrates how the interactive air guitar T-shirt works

Two Cardiff-based designers have won a technology award with their interactive T-shirt for people playing air guitar.

The shirt developed by Warren Fauvel and Luke Khan allows the wearer to score points as their hand passes over a barcode on the shirt.

It won an award at the annual SXSW music and technology festival in Austin, Texas.

The pair are hoping the win will build interest in their product and lead to orders.

They picked up the “bootstrap” award for the most innovation with the least amount of capital.

‘Great opportunity’

Mr Khan said his colleague had been nervous but “quietly confident” ahead of his presentation to the judging panel on Wednesday.

Mr Fauvel attended the event with members The Last Republic, the south Wales rock band for whom the T-shirt was developed.

“I think we’ve got a great opportunity to go all the way as the AiR guitar is a little different to everything else on show,” said Mr Fauvel.

The designers’ firm, FauvelKhan in Butetown, has applied for a worldwide patent on the T-shirt, which it hopes to sell to other bands as merchandising.

Mr Fauvel and Mr Khan began their partnership in 2007 after graduating from Swansea Metropolitan University.

The music and technology took place for the third year as the interactive arm of the annual SXSW (South by Southwest) music festival which has been growing in reputation as a showcase for cutting edge artists.