SculpTon is a malleable interface for musical expression oriented to live performances, which combines a deformable input surface and an embodied sound model of the human voice. SculpTon is based on the idea of sculpting as a way for promoting and creating an active and engaging relation between the performer and the musical artifact.
Through this interface a performer can explore sculpt a sonic space that is far from vocality or singing, but is something more closed to the origins of the language and the emergence of utterance.  The performer and the interface are then struggling together in a physical-sonic act that is ambiguous, funny but also deeply disturbing. After different stages of refinement, SculpTon is now a stability and playability that makes this interface quite unique, and even strange.

References

Alberto Boem, 2014. SculpTon. A Malleable Tangible Interface for Sound Sculpting. In Proceedings of the 2014 Joint ICMC + SMC Conference (International Computer Music Conference + Sound and Music Computing Conference), Athens, GR, 14-20.07.2014. ICMA, USA, 737-743. [pdf]

Alberto Boem, 2013. Sculpton, a malleable tangible object for musical expression. In Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction (TEI’13). ACM, New York, NY, USA. [pdf]

Project Page

Alberto Boem – Personal website