The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2022
Dentsu Lab Tokyo's eye-gaze music tools with ALS artists play live across three countries
Dentsu Lab Tokyo and ALS artists co-created three free eye-gaze music tools, then played the first remote live set across three countries
Dentsu Lab Tokyo
What it had to solve
Dentsu Lab Tokyo, the creative R&D arm of Dentsu, wanted to build expression tools for people with disabilities and others who are often overlooked. Its first project aimed to unlock the potential of eye-gaze input — the channel available to artists living with ALS — so a live music instrument would serve not only them, but anybody.
How it works
Dentsu Lab Tokyo is Dentsu's creative R&D organisation, and ALL PLAYERS TOOL LAB is one of its platforms: an innovation lab that designs creative tools and solutions for people with disabilities and others who are often overlooked. The aim is to let anyone express themselves, not just consume what others make.
For its first project the lab co-developed a live performance instrument with two ALS artists, people who may lose movement and speech but can still direct their gaze. Instead of a simplified assistive gadget, the collaboration produced three real instruments — EYE XY PAD, EYE MIDI PAD and EYE SHOOTING PAD — built to maximise the potential of eye-gaze input and offered free on the ALL PLAYERS TOOL LAB platform.
The proof was a live performance: what the project calls the world's first remote live performance using eye-gaze input, held across three countries. Because the tools were free and made for anyone, the artists' set came across not as a demonstration of disability but as a demonstration of what the instruments could do.
Why it lands
- The design started with the two ALS artists, so the instruments met real expressive needs instead of assumptions about disability.
- Free distribution on an open platform positioned accessibility as shared creative infrastructure, not a niche product.
- The remote three-country live set proved the tools at the hardest distance — if eye-gaze music works live and remote, it works anywhere.
- The idea redefined assistive technology as music technology: tools built with disabled artists became instruments for everybody.
What it did
The tools let ALS artists perform live music at a distance with nothing but their gaze, and the three-country remote show proved the instruments were for any player, not a niche assistive device. D&AD's awards archive records the work in its Digital Experience Design category.
What you can take
When a constraint excludes people, build the accessible version to be genuinely good, give it away, and prove it live — usefulness for everyone is the strongest argument.
Since then
Dentsu Lab Tokyo presented ALL PLAYERS TOOL LAB at its Open Lab in Tokyo in October 2022, where visitors could try holding a gaze on one point and feel how precise the artists' control was. The project sits inside the lab's wider ALL PLAYERS WELCOME effort to create environments in which anyone can express themselves, and D&AD's awards archive records the work for its Digital Experience Design jury.
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