"Kitch’n’Patterns"

Year: 2022–2023

Type / context: Interactive audio installation and album/suite for kitchen showroom and gallery contexts, exploring domestic sound as electronic music material.

Partners, institutions and production:

• Commission (Version 1): Dibiesse Cucine – interactive kitchen installation.

• Visual / graphic design: Marianna Anoardi (custom conductive screen prints and graphic layout).

• Music release: Kitch’n Patterns (album) by Secret Compound (℗ 2022 Andrea Santini), released on Bandcamp, Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music.

Role:

• Andrea Santini – concept, interaction design, sound design and composition: design of the interactive system based on capacitive sensing with conductive screen prints, creation of all musical and sonic material from original kitchen recordings, author of the Secret Compound album derived from the installation.

Short description:
Kitch’n’Patterns is an interactive audio installation built around a kitchen counter where visitors trigger and shape sound by touching specially designed conductive screen prints that act as capacitive sensors. All the core sound material is derived from the kitchen itself: sounds produced with common utensils are recombined into a blend of electronica, pop and sound design; rhythmic patterns created by furniture flaps, cutlery, cups and graters are combined with melodic and harmonic structures derived from samples of food cooking in pots, jugs and glasses. With the exception of a few highly recognisable elements such as the piano, almost all the material comes from original recordings transformed through sampling, editing and synthesis, blurring the line between everyday gesture and musical performance. The installation is mirrored by the album “Kitch’n Patterns”, released as Secret Compound.

Versions:

• Version 1 (2022): Interactive kitchen-counter installation for Dibiesse Cucine, with conductive screen prints directly integrated into the worktop graphics functioning as capacitive touch sensors that trigger and modulate the sound structures derived from kitchen recordings.

• Version 2 (2023): Revised installation for gallery/showroom contexts, in which the visual interface moves onto printed vinyl surfaces while maintaining the same capacitive interaction principle and sonic vocabulary, allowing a more flexible and modular presentation of the work

Album release