Three wooden objects respond to visitors. Approaching an object brings up memories of childhood. Knocking on it brings up what humans make from wood – musical instruments and artworks: each knock plays a guitar note, and a painting/drawing appears on the object. The three objects are tuned to form a chord. After a knock, the object ignores the approaching hand until its note has faded.

A single projector above the objects maps their top surfaces: a photograph of the wood beneath at rest, white light as a hand approaches, and the artwork after a knock.

Each object carries a balsa panel with a capacitive proximity pad and a piezo pickup underneath. One ESP32-S3 per object measures proximity continuously, detects knocks and their intensity, and sends both via Bluetooth LE to a laptop running Max/MSP. Max/MSP runs a state machine per object (rest, approach, answer), plays the sound through a stereo system in the room and drives the projection in MadMapper via OSC. Because all three objects share one stereo image, knock-to-note latency is kept under 60 ms – the immediate response is what ties a note to the object that was knocked.

It was exhibited from 24.–27. September 2026 at KIND A ZIMMA in Klagenfurt, Austria.