 The Verge is partnering with this year's inaugural Panorama Music Festival in New York City. And we're going to be hosting The Lab, an incredible interactive art space running all weekend long. We spoke to Phil and Charlie from Mountain Gods, two artists who have work in this year's space. Their piece is called Gigantic Gestures. My name is Phil Serzaga. I'm a designer, animator, and artist. I'm Charlie Whitney, and I'm a programmer. I got into this by accident because I lied on a resume. Then I had to teach myself to program. We were roommates for five years. So we know way too much about each other. Well, it's called Giant Gestures. And the physical piece is a gigantic tablet that you use a gigantic foam finger to touch with. And the idea came out of the fact that we're doing all these tiny little gestures every day. Thousands of times a day. You don't even know that you're doing them anymore. They're pretty meaningless. So we wanted people to have to do those same gestures, but feel them. So doing a giant swipe with a finger. So feeling every one of these swipes and making it sort of like a little performance. For all we know, swiping and tapping and pinching to zoom, that could be completely obsolete in five, ten years. A rotary phone was ubiquitous. If the movement is completely defunct, is swiping to unlock, is that going to be defunct at some point? Is that going to fall by the wayside? You'll feel it, and maybe you won't think about it until 30 years from now when you're like, ah, I remember you used to swipe to unlock. I wouldn't say it's nostalgic, but it's sort of the living memoir of these gestures. I think more importantly, it's a reinterpretation. I think it's like taking something that's so small and blowing it up. It's like a wiffle ball bat in the park, but if you swing a bat in the World Series, it's the same motion, but recontextualized, it means a lot more. We basically are putting an infrared bezel around a large TV, which basically shoots infrared light and gets an exact point of where you are within this rectangle. We're translating that into an application that Charlie's writing to keep track of all the data that you're getting in from these touches and reinterpreting them and putting them into, basically recognizing it just as a normal touch. I think that music festivals lend themselves really well to these types of things just because people are already ready to go outside their comfort zone. You go through so much thought figuring out how people are really going to interact with something. So taking something that we're familiar with and just reinterpreting it allows for immediate understanding.
 The Verge is partnering with this year's inaugural Panorama Music Festival in New York City.
 And we're going to be hosting The Lab, an incredible interactive art space running all weekend long.
 We spoke to Phil and Charlie from Mountain Gods, two artists who have work in this year's space.
 Their piece is called Gigantic Gestures.
 My name is Phil Serzaga. I'm a designer, animator, and artist.
 I'm Charlie Whitney, and I'm a programmer.
 I got into this by accident because I lied on a resume.
 Then I had to teach myself to program. We were roommates for five years.
 So we know way too much about each other.
 Well, it's called Giant Gestures.
 And the physical piece is a gigantic tablet that you use a gigantic foam finger to touch with.
 And the idea came out of the fact that we're doing all these tiny little gestures every day.
 Thousands of times a day. You don't even know that you're doing them anymore.
 They're pretty meaningless. So we wanted people to have to do those same gestures, but feel them.
 So doing a giant swipe with a finger.
 So feeling every one of these swipes and making it sort of like a little performance.
 For all we know, swiping and tapping and pinching to zoom, that could be completely obsolete in five, ten years.
 A rotary phone was ubiquitous.
 If the movement is completely defunct, is swiping to unlock, is that going to be defunct at some point?
 Is that going to fall by the wayside?
 You'll feel it, and maybe you won't think about it until 30 years from now when you're like,
 ah, I remember you used to swipe to unlock.
 I wouldn't say it's nostalgic, but it's sort of the living memoir of these gestures.
 I think more importantly, it's a reinterpretation.
 I think it's like taking something that's so small and blowing it up.
 It's like a wiffle ball bat in the park, but if you swing a bat in the World Series,
 it's the same motion, but recontextualized, it means a lot more.
 We basically are putting an infrared bezel around a large TV, which basically shoots infrared light
 and gets an exact point of where you are within this rectangle.
 We're translating that into an application that Charlie's writing to keep track of all the data that you're getting in from these touches
 and reinterpreting them and putting them into, basically recognizing it just as a normal touch.
 I think that music festivals lend themselves really well to these types of things
 just because people are already ready to go outside their comfort zone.
 You go through so much thought figuring out how people are really going to interact with something.
 So taking something that we're familiar with and just reinterpreting it
 allows for immediate understanding.