JooYou Paek’s Fold Loud is a music interface that explores using origami paper-folding techniques and ritualistic Taoist principles to create a fun and relaxing music controller.

By folding paper in various ways, different sounds are triggered.

Here’s Paek’s explanation of the project:

Fold Loud interconnects ancient traditions and modern technology by combining origami, vocal sound and interactive techniques. Unlike mainstream technology intended for fast-paced life, Fold Loud is healing, recovering and balancing.

Playing Fold Loud involves folding origami shapes to create soothing harmonic vocal sounds. Each fold is assigned to a different human vocal sound so that combinations of folds create harmonies. Users can fold multiple Fold Loud sheets together to produce a chorus of voices.

Opened circuits made out of conductive fabric are visibly stitched onto the sheets of paper which creates a meta-technological aesthetic. When the sheets are folded along crease lines, a circuit is closed like a switch. Thus, the interface guides participants to use repetitive delicate hand gestures such as flipping, pushing and creasing.

Fold Loud invites users to slow down and reflect on different physical senses by crafting paper into both geometric origami objects and harmonic music.

There’s a video of the Fold Loud installation at Paek’s site.

via TodayAndTomorrow