Haptographer / 2025
Touch to play sound, and sound plays the shape.
Exhibited at Pebblebed SF as part of the Rise of the Researcher-Creative Exhibition.
Based on my interview article The Haptographer,
I reimagined DJ / VJing with touch, and for touch.
Each slime pad acts as a capacitive interface that triggers individual instrument tracks. The resulting audio then drives an interactive inflatable, transforming waveform energy into physical motion and turning sound into shape.
Full Video with Audio
Technical Description
Fabricated three custom inflatables using heat-sealed TPU films, generated through a 3D-printer-driven sealing workflow built in Grasshopper, Rhinoceros.
Designed and 3D-printed external housings and created conductive slime pads as capacitive touch interfaces.
Touch inputs were mapped to individual instrument tracks via a Playtron MIDI interface.
Audio features were processed in TouchDesigner to compute actuation timing, then transmitted wirelessly to an ESP32 microcontroller, which controlled pumps and valves to animate the inflatables.
Special thanks to Tianyu Yu and the Morphing Matter Lab, who guided me in TPU fabrication.
