Wood as Interface

I started by messing with wood first.

At the beginning, I was laser-engraving pine boards with different depths and patterns, mostly out of curiosity. I wanted to see how texture might change the way a surface feels.

Then I began running my fingers, nails, and small objects across the surface, like scraping, tapping, dragging, pressing, and listening through contact mics.

From the user tests, I noticed that tiny differences mattered more than I expected. A slightly deeper groove changed how vibration traveled. A denser pattern made gestures feel heavier. Some areas responded immediately; others felt resistant, almost quiet until pushed harder.

At some point, I stopped thinking of the engravings as patterns. They were doing real work instead of just being decorations. The surface itself was shaping the sound with physical vibrations. Texture was an interface.

Once I accepted that, my goal changed. Instead of designing a predictable interaction, I started wondering what if the material doesn’t always respond the same way? What if unpredictability isn’t a problem, but the thing you learn to play?

Driftwood: Learning to Listen Back

These experiments slowly turned into an object I could carry, rehearse with, and perform. I started calling it Driftwood.

Driftwood is built from wood, metal elements, and contact microphones. The surface has rods, plates, strings, and friction zones: nothing very refined. Each element transmits vibration differently. Some respond to light touch, others only wake up with pressure or movement.

The instrument reacts to gesture and weight. Sound builds gradually and is super unpredictable. Three contact mics capture vibration directly from the wood and feed it into Ableton Live, where I use resonators, filters, and spectral tools to extend what the material is already doing.

When I rehearse with Driftwood, I also try to listen to it each time and learn where it resists, where it rings, where it collapses into noise. It feels closer to working with an environment than with an instrument.

I performed Driftwood at Littlefield NYC in December 2025. That performance wasn’t about control. It was about attention—listening to decay, letting small gestures grow, letting silence sit longer than felt comfortable. I grew up around natural soundscapes where nothing is isolated and everything shifts slowly. On stage, I was trying to recreate that kind of listening, but through touch.

From a Personal Object to a Shareable System

After a while, Driftwood started to feel limited in a different way. It worked, but it was large, fragile, and very personal. Only I knew how it responded. That raised a question I couldn’t ignore: if texture is something you learn through touch, how can someone else learn this without borrowing my instrument?

That question led to TapTap.

TapTap is a DIY, open-ended instrument kit based on the same logic as Driftwood. There’s no “correct” configuration. Users assemble their own surface using a pre-drilled base, curated sticks and materials of different lengths and textures, and modular attachments.

A lot of the materials are intentionally ordinary: chopsticks, household objects, things that don’t feel precious. The wooden parts are open-source and can be laser-cut locally or replaced with cardboard. I wanted the act of building the instrument to feel casual, not intimidating.

Stays minimal

The software layer stays minimal on purpose. Users scan a QR code and enter a web-based interface where they can record sounds, apply effects, and experiment in real time. The focus should stay on touching and active listening.

This project keeps reminding me that interaction doesn’t start on a screen. It starts at the surface, in the hand, in the small negotiations between material, gesture, and attention.