Concrete Sonic Instruments, Interactive Game with casted cubes of concrete and iron, SUM has been developed between 2014 and 2017 by Niko de Paula Lefort and Jonas Hummel, with the support of the 3DMIN research program at UDK / TU Berlin between 2014 and 2016.
SUM moves the paradigm of music making back to its essential PLAY.
With its most simple design, SUM is the rebirth of the intuitive and experimental child versus the performer virtuoso. Yet, with its infinite variations of sonic outcome, it challenges the most complex and refined instruments.
SUM can be played alone or together without more rules than the ones implied by the game design, players, the context, and the musical outcome, guided by the listening experience.
SUM Instruments curriculum:
2018: SUM3 selected for the semi-final of the Gutman Musical Instruments Competition at Georgia Tech (Atlanta, US).
2016-2017: SUM2 @ "Good Vibrations, Eine Geschichte der elektronischen Musikinstrumente" at Musikinstrumeneten Museum in Berlin.
2017: SUM3 @ WaveCave gallery and Digital Arts Expo 2017 at the California Institut of the Arts.
2015 & 2016: SUM2 @ Design Transfer gallery, LEAP gallery, Spektrum, Basic Electricity in Berlin.
2014: SUM1 performance @ Volksbühne Berlin.
additional links:
SUM2 Exhibition video
SUM2 at 3DMIN Concert Series, LEAP Berlin, May 2015
SUM1 at Volksbühne Rotter Salon, July 2014
SUM versions specifications :
All versions
--> Concrete-Iron cubes with the support of Think Concrete Berlin.
SUM3 / SUM4D
--> Black Walnut Redwood woods box by Tom Clay, 16 copper pads "touch' capacitive sensing, Arduino Mega, Bluetooth, Python for OSC, Max MSP for Machine Learning and synthesis, or alternatively Wekinator and SuperCollider.
--> SUM3 has been exhibited as Polyhedron, a multichannel installation and sonic game for multiple players engaging listening as a guide through the game.
SUM2
--> Concrete-Iron cubes, laser cut PVC cube, printed PCB, latex sheet, diamond shaped 'touch' capacitive sensing grid, Cypress PSoC 4, Rob Hordijk moduler synthesizer & SuperCollider, CV via MOTU audio interface.
--> Performed as a sonic game for 2 players with no pre-defined rules as for the play the play is emphasized as a structural factor for the music produced.
SUM1
--> Concrete-Iron cubes, laser cut PVC structure, cork, screws, 3x4 matrix of pressure/force sensors, Arduino Mega, digital feedback matrix in SuperCollider
--> A light shines on a four-dimensional object in a four-dimensional world, casts a three-dimensional shadow.
The composition Shadows plays with spacial perception by means of psychoacoustics in relation to object-architectural scales.