tapTap is a construction toy capturing a fascination with rhythm and fidgeting.

The system is built up of individual knock boxes. Each box has its own memory and is completely self-contained. As you tap on the top of a box, the box waits for a few seconds and then taps back what it has heard. If you want more you add another box, and another, and another, tap, tap, tap.

Stacking the boxes creates longer and more complex rhythm lines as the patterns tumble down the resulting pyramids. By tapping for longer than the delay period you play a duet with the box as it repeats your earlier rhythms.

Audio delays are often only that, audible, tapTap renders them physical. The boxes themselves do not learn or loop, they only repeat. This keeps the system as simple as possible. There is no perpetual motion only tap, pause and tap. At 4 seconds the delay is just long enough to give the boxes a life of their own… just long enough to wonder if they have forgotten.

tapTap comes from an initial development with Louise W. Klinker.

Video

tapTap from Andy Huntington on Vimeo.

Commissions

In 2007 tapTap was awarded a commission for the Soundwaves exhibition at Kinetica, London enabling the production of a second set of prototypes. You can see a flickr set of the development images here.