Holon 4+

Become Sound‪™‬

Holonic Systems Oy

    • 4.5 • 13 Ratings
    • Free
    • Offers In-App Purchases

Description

Holon turns your city into an interactive musical score and you become the performer. The world is not a jukebox - it's an instrument!

Holon lets you perform improvised electronic music by moving spatially between different locations. Holon uses the iPhone's sensors and GPS data to generate musical parameters. In this way, music is created as a result of your behaviour and activities in the environment.

- Holon is a passive, “zero-UI” app, which means no screen interaction is required. Instead, the physical world becomes a tangible musical interface that facilitates musical agency.

- Use functional feedback, (proprioceptive/locomotor/biofeedback) to support your activities, as passive operation allows you to remain fully immersed in real-world interactions. Holon is not just a passive listening experience though, it is an interactive score that adapts to your context.

- Instead of waving your phone around, use headphones for immersive auditory feedback and place the phone in a pocket for action-perception coupling to work properly. This also reduces screen time.

- For even further musical embodiment, Apple AirPods 3/Pro/Max can be used as head tracking controllers that add fills and modulation to the music. Set them to transparency mode for improved situational awareness and natural acoustic blending.

- Holon provides a seamless auditory experience that responds to real-time movement and location data. The app now reflects changing environments (urban morphology) by responding musically to Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) data and proximity to landmarks and Points Of Interest (POIs).

- Holon showcases the Holonic white-label B2B platform for Auditory AR applications - send business inquiries to info@holonic.systems

- Become part of the circuit and... Become Sound™

Holon is based on theories of affective design, urban musicology and biomusicology. Through entrainment and sonification, Holon couples self-movement with sound in order to support and encourage activity in different ways.
Holon synchronizes the tempo of the music with your activity: BPM is calculated from speed when in a vehicle, from step rate when walking, from heart rate if stationary and wearing an Apple Watch.

Holon uses data from Geographic Information Systems and various onboard sensors to create data-driven, auto-generated, long-form content. The data is synthesized in realtime on your device, based on musical frameworks created by artists, who can now, as an exclusive first, use the miRack virtual modular system for synthesis. This results in emergent musical events and complex sonic transformations that are perceptually and structurally coupled with user activities.

Entering certain areas changes the music in several ways. We’ve categorised land use areas (zoning, basically) and nodes (PointsOfInterest) according to their amount of human activity. This means that the intensity of the music increases or decreases depending on the area. Natural areas (parks, water) lower it and results in ambient music. Retail zones increase it, as do transportation and industrial areas. POIs are categorized into Transit or Utility nodes. These respond to your proximity and result in various interactions, ranging from influencing the melody or adding percussion elements as you pass them. POIs include amenities, street furniture, bars, hotels, cafés and also objects related to urban mobility.

Holon offers an alternative to generative AI and streaming algorithms. In the Holonic model, audiences become performers, performers become composers, and composers become world builders. Artists can use the Holonist editor app to map data to musical parameters. As an exclusive first, the miRack virtual modular synthesis platform is now available to synthesize sound for musical interactions embedded in places and objects. This is sonic placemaking on an epic scale.

Through the use of perceptual correlation, conceptual blending, and action-perception coupling, Holon creates personally meaningful and contextually relevant multi-sensory Ubiquitous Music experiences.

What’s New

Version 1.2.6

Holon's following new features and enhancements are set to elevate your interactive musical journey:

- Reinstated Apple Watch support: Responding to popular demand, Holon now integrates with Apple Watch. Your motion data and biosignals, such as heart rate, are used to influence the music, creating a more personalized and immersive experience. Try pulse sonification biofeedback when stationary! 

- Improved Spatial Intelligence for interactive journeys: Our curated geospatial dataset is updated for more defined and varied interactions. Enjoy new musical responses to various elements, such as road networks, railways, bridges, tunnels, stairs, rivers, canals, paths, trails, cable cars, zip lines, ski lifts, ferry routes and much more!

- Expanded coverage areas: We have vastly increased the number of covered areas, adding new regions and geospatial data points to ensure a richer and more diverse auditory environment.

- Inferred LULC: Advanced Land Use / Land Cover features now work in many more areas. LULC works best in the areas marked red on the map available at holonic.systems/holon.

- Set of 10 all-new Ubiquitous Music presets that showcase geospatial nodes (POIs) and land use in different ways. Powered by miRack!

PLEASE NOTE:

For Holon to work correctly, you'll need to be in one of the 1000 supported regions, see coverage and request yours at: holonic.systems/holon 

Auditory Augmented Reality is a CPU and power intensive task. Ensure you have a full battery and keep the phone cool and well ventilated. To conserve battery, turn Holon off when not in use (swipe up from the bottom of the screen and swipe away the app).

Please send any feedback to info@holonic.systems

Ratings and Reviews

4.5 out of 5
13 Ratings

13 Ratings

xJohnnyHx ,

Wow

Very, very cool concept and execution. Would love Audiobus support.

Developer Response ,

Thank you very much! It’s possible that we could include Audiobus and AUv.3 support, but it’s more likely to be available sooner for our editor, Holon.ist, which already has MIDI out. You’re welcome to try the beta: http://bit.do/holonist

EC0SMINU ,

My background music form now on lol

I'm impressed-this app lets you interact with the invisible musical ethereal space within which sound itself awaits papered to be drawn out of the world through the interaction of consciousness and action..... Connect to your loved ones and hear the music echoes of themselves, in realtime? whenever you feel too far distanced!!!!! Awesome!!!

Developer Response ,

Thank you very much! Our next update - out soon - has even more real-world musical interactions and several new presets to explore, hope you enjoy them!

bigboom13 ,

Wow!!! Great app!

This app is so unique! I couldn’t find any app quite like this! It’s so cool how you can just move the phone in different ways and make music! I do have a few suggestions though. You should include a manual explaining which way you have to move your arm to make a certain song. That is pretty much the only thing this app needs to become the best Ar music app!

Developer Response ,

Thank you for your review and kind words. We’d like to help but the complexity of our music engine is such that we ourselves cannot completely fathom it’s workings. Holon is very much about exploring the features first hand and some results are not always replicable, as the factors behind them involve the weather, time of day, distance traveled and so on. Our editor, Holon.ist, on the other hand, is a fully configurable meta-instrument. We wish you many happy moments with Holon.

App Privacy

The developer, Holonic Systems Oy, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy.

Data Not Linked to You

The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:

  • Diagnostics

Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More

Supports

  • Family Sharing

    Some in‑app purchases, including subscriptions, may be shareable with your family group when Family Sharing is enabled.

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