Sonic Maze: Pressure-Sensitive Drawing as an Affective Sonic Practice

Sonic Maze: Pressure-Sensitive Drawing as an Affective Sonic Practice Federica Ciotti1and Patrick Hartono1[000000025604274X] Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK [email protected],[email protected] Abstract. This paper introduces Sonic Maze,asonicdrawingsystem that translates gestural force into spatialised sound. Developed through an iterative prototyping process, the system uses a load-cell interface to capture the physical act of drawing and convert it into real-time spatial audio. Situated within a practice-based research framework, the project investigates how drawing may function as a mode of listening and composition, beyond its conventional visual role. Initial pilot sessions with artists suggest that the interface supports affective engagement and encourages improvisational interaction. The paper contributes to ongoing discussions in embodied sonic interaction and spatial audio by presenting an interface that invites non-linear, situated approaches to soundmaking. Preliminary reflections indicate the potential of such systems to act as tools for cognitive exploration and sonic navigation in performance and installation settings. Keywords: Sonic Drawing ·Embodied Interaction ·Spatial Audio ·Haptic Interface ·Deep Listening ·Practice-Based Research 1IntroductionandContext The convergence of sound, touch, and spatial interaction has emerged as fertile ground for reimagining embodied experience in digital media practices. Contemporary discourse around sonic embodiment positions the body not merely as a receiver of auditory information, but as an active participant in the creation and modulation of sonic meaning [4,5]. This shift challenges traditional paradigms of sound production and consumption, foregrounding what Salomé Voegelin [7] terms “sonic possible worlds”; spaces where listening becomes a generative act of world-making rather than passive reception. Critical to this discourse is the recognition that sonic gesture encompasses both the physical act of interaction and the emergent sonic behaviours that result from that interaction. Building on Karen Barad’s [1] concept of “intra-activity,” contemporary sonic interaction research recognises that gesture and sound are co-constitutive rather than simply causal. Building on this theoretical foundation, we pose the central question: how might drawing function not as visual inscription, but as a tactile and spatial mode of composition, one that engages the body as a site of listening? Proc. of the 17th International Symposium on CMMR, London, UK, Nov. 3-7, 2025 372 F. Ciotti and P. Hartono Through the development of a responsive system that translates pressure into real-time spatialised sound, the research investigates how gestural force can become a form of sonic navigation and cognitive exploration. The project contributes to this theoretical landscape by investigating how drawing may function as a mode of listening and composition, beyond its conventional visual role. In doing so, the project extends feminist technoscience critiques of ocularcentrism [3,1] and aligns with Pauline Oliveros’s [5] concept of deep listening, an attentive, embodied practice that recognises listening as both reception and creation. Developed through an iterative, practice-based methodology, Sonic Maze translates gestural force into spatialised sound using a load-cell interface beneath a transparent acrylic surface. The system captures the physical act of drawing and converts it into real-time spatial audio, repositioning drawing as a sonic and embodied act rather than visual inscription. Rather than treating the hand as controller, the interface engages the body as a site of sonic sensitivity, where subtle variations in pressure, movement, and tension become compositional elements. Fig. 1. Sonic Maze: Concept Diagram. This approach follows a lineage of embodied sonic interfaces including Daphne Oram’s Oramics, where drawn gesture directly shaped electronic sound as a tactile, gestural language for composition, and Atau Tanaka’s pioneering work with electromyogram signals, where internal physiological states become direct performative material [6]. In both cases, gesture is not symbolic but somatic; not representational but relational, an ethos we extend by embedding pressure-based drawing directly into a spatial audio field, thereby merging tactile inscription with real-time sonic navigation. The intimate dimension of spatial hearing proves fundamental to the work’s affect. The system’s binaural output interacts with each participant’s unique Proc. of the 17th International Symposium on CMMR, London, UK, Nov. 3-7, 2025 373 Sonic Maze: Pressure-Sensitive Drawing Head-Related Transfer Function, the physiological filtering of spatial sound by ears, head, and upper body, ensuring no two experiences are perceptually identical. Each person navigates and composes their own acoustic field through pressure and motion. In this way, the system becomes not just interactive, but affective: it enables a form of sonic world-making that is improvisational, embodied, and individually felt. 2MethodologyandSystemDevelopment Sonic Maze was developed through a practice-based, post-disciplinary methodology, an approach that dissolves conventional art/engineering boundaries to treat prototyping as a site of knowledge production [2]. This approach recognises the prototype not only as a technical artefact but as a dynamic space of inquiry, an interface through which interaction, embodiment, and sonic meaning can be explored. Fig. 2. Sonic Maze 1.0: Prototype. Iterative development cycles were central to this process: building, testing, and refining each version in response to conceptual aims and user interaction. The project emerged from a desire to reposition drawing as a sonic and embodied act, shifting its function from visual inscription to spatial composition. – Sonic Maze 1.0 served as a proof of concept, using four force-sensitive resistors (FSRs) to translate drawing pressure into real-time audio with Max/MSP. – Sonic Maze 2.0 builds on that foundation, reintegrating embodied touch through four load cells and a piezo contact microphone to form a hybrid interface for spatial audio 3-D composition. Proc. of the 17th International Symposium on CMMR, London, UK, Nov. 3-7, 2025 374 F. Ciotti and P. Hartono – Sonic Maze 3.0 moved into abstraction, simulating gesture data to prototype visualisation strategies and to test the symbolic potential of spatial interaction without physical input. Throughout development, attention was paid not only to sensor responsiveness and system stability, but also to how the interface invites intuitive, improvisational use. Rather than prioritising precision or control, the system was designed to support exploratory, affect-driven interaction, encouraging users to engage with sound as a malleable, responsive space. The sonic output was deliberately conceived not as a fixed palette of timbres but as the immediate resonance of gesture itself: the scrape of a pen, the friction of touch, or the resonance of small objects rolling on the surface. These raw, situated sounds are rendered through binaural spatialisation in Spat5, so that what users hear is always bound to what they do. While the specific sonic material may change, the underlying focus remains on interaction. It is the act of drawing and touching that constitutes the compositional experience, rather than the particular sound set employed. 3SonicMaze:DesignandImplementation The interface consists of a transparent, laser-cut acrylic surface, mounted at each corner on four 10 kg load cells. These load cells, equipped with HX711 amplifiers, are connected to a Raspberry Pi Pico W via perfboard. This hardware configuration was chosen for its low latency (under 8 milliseconds) and compact footprint, enabling responsive performance in a limited physical space. Fig. 3. Sonic Maze 2.0 Force data from the load cells are transmitted over Wi-Fi using OSC (Open Sound Control) messages. These signals are received in Max/MSP, where they are processed into real-time X–Y centre-of-pressure coordinates. This mapping allows the system to respond continuously to shifts in touch and pressure across the surface. In addition to force sensing, a piezoelectric contact microphone is mounted beneath the acrylic to capture the tactile textures of interaction: scrapes, taps, Proc. of the 17th International Symposium on CMMR, London, UK, Nov. 3-7, 2025 375 Sonic Maze: Pressure-Sensitive Drawing and frictional gestures. These two parallel input streams, pressure and vibration, are used together to spatialise and articulate sound. The centre-of-pressure coordinates control binaural panning through the Spat5 library, creating a sense of movement and presence in the stereo field. Simultaneously, the signal from the contact microphone is mapped into the same spatial space, embedding raw physical gestures into the sound environment. Together, they produce a layered sonic field shaped by the user’s touch. This design emphasises tactile, embodied interaction. The surface functions as more than a controller, it is simultaneously a drawing plane, a resonant object, and a spatial interface. Users are not required to learn a fixed vocabulary of gestures. Instead, they discover possibilities through intuitive exploration. Pressing, tracing, or tapping the surface yields not only audible output, but also a heightened sense of spatial agency, sound becomes an extension of the body. Initial testing focused on sensitivity to light gestures. The load cells were upgraded from 3 kg to 10 kg capacity to maintain high resolution for subtle input. Various materials and interaction tools were tested, including fingertips, pens, and small objects. Spatial feedback was monitored through headphones to evaluate the clarity and responsiveness of the binaural system. A modular Max patch enables real-time adjustment of parameters such as gain, smoothing, and mapping, supporting rapid iteration based on direct experiential feedback. Through these components, Sonic Maze operates not as a fixed tool or musical instrument, but as an open-ended compositional system, one that adapts to its user, rewards nuance, and is grounded in the physicality of interaction. 4InsightsandDiscussion The first public engagement with Sonic Maze 1.0 took place in January 2025 during a pop-up event at Goldsmiths, University of London. At this stage, the system was in an early prototype form, using force-sensitive resistors (FSRs), an Arduino Mega, and Max/MSP. Although spatialisation was not yet implemented, the interaction between gesture and sound already hinted at a relational and exploratory mode of composition. During the installation, participants used white pens to draw on black paper, treating the device as a drawing surface. Simultaneously, they listened through headphones to a soundscape that responded in real time to pressure and movement. Each participant was given the same type and size of paper and identical pens, an intentional constraint designed to standardise the visual outcome and draw focus toward gesture rather than graphic variation. The setup created an intimate atmosphere. Without any instructions, participants engaged instinctively: some drew with broad, sweeping gestures; others with small, repetitive marks. Informal feedback described the experience as “meditative,” “calming,” and “freeing.” Many stayed in the space longer than expected, absorbed in the tactile-sonic feedback loop. These interactions suggested ashiftfromoutcome-drivenbehaviourstoamodeofopen,embodiedattention. Proc. of the 17th International Symposium on CMMR, London, UK, Nov. 3-7, 2025 376 F. Ciotti and P. Hartono Fig. 4. Audience engaging with the Sonic Maze 1.0 installation during the pop-up event. After the sessions, the resulting drawings were hung on the wall, forming a temporary archive. These were not displayed as analytical data, but as material traces, evidence of sonic–haptic interaction. What emerged was not just a visual collection, but a record of listening-in-motion: each drawing a residue of atransient,deeplypersonalnegotiationbetweenhand,surface,andsound. These early insights shaped the system’s next developmental phase. One direction involved recording a unique soundscape for each drawing session, preserving its temporal and affective character. Another was the integration of more detailed sonic feedback, introducing binaural spatialisation and a contact microphone to capture tactile surface events such as taps, scrapes, and friction. These additions enriched the system’s responsiveness and deepened the affective texture of the experience. Across its iterations, Sonic Maze has remained grounded in drawing as both compositional and cognitive interface. The act of marking is no longer oriented toward image-making, but toward spatial navigation and sonic orientation, an improvisational dialogue with sound. Each gesture becomes a form of listening, and each moment of interaction, a composition in motion. Understood as such, Sonic Maze is not a musical instrument to be mastered, but an evolving system that invites presence, responsiveness, and reflection. It is an interface for sensing and composing through the body, open-ended, affectively attuned, and anchored in the immediacy of touch. Proc. of the 17th International Symposium on CMMR, London, UK, Nov. 3-7, 2025 377 Sonic Maze: Pressure-Sensitive Drawing 5Conclusions Sonic Maze set out to ask whether drawing might operate as a mode of listening rather than merely visual inscription. By translating gestural force into spatialised sound, the system repositions the hand, not as an abstract controller, but as a site where tactile nuance, bodily tension, and sonic imagination converge. Pilot engagements demonstrate that participants readily inhabit this space: they draw to hear, hear to navigate, and navigate to think. Feedback describing the experience as “meditative” and “freeing” indicates that the interface cultivates the kind of deep-listening attention championed by Oliveros, while the diversity of gestures produced, sweeps, taps, micro-marks, confirms that sonic authorship emerges through exploration rather than predefined technique. Methodologically, the project contributes to a practice-based blueprint for post-disciplinary prototyping: rapid iteration across three hardware generations, each foregrounding a different research lens (embodiment, hybrid sensing, abstraction). Technically, it offers an openly documented pipeline - load cells, contact mic, OSC, Spat5 - that can be repurposed for other spatial-audio contexts. Conceptually, it extends feminist technoscience critiques of ocularcentrism by placing haptic audition at the centre of compositional practice. Several limitations invite future work. First, the preliminary study relied on informal feedback; a structured evaluation combining qualitative interviews with quantitative spatial-perception measures is planned. Second, the current binaural rendering assumes headphone listening; forthcoming iterations will test higher-order ambisonics to accommodate loudspeaker arrays and larger audiences. Finally, we aim to explore multi-user interaction, allowing overlapping drawing paths to co-author a shared acoustic topology. By foregrounding space as both medium and material, Sonic Maze positions itself at the intersection of sonic embodiment and spatial practice. It shows how listening can be drawn into being, how places may be traced, pressed, and sculpted in sound, thereby opening new horizons for cognitive exploration, performance, and installation work. Acknowledgments. The authors would like to thank Goldsmiths, University of London, for institutional support, as well as colleagues and peers whose feedback contributed to the development of this project. Disclosure of Interests. The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. References 1. Barad, K.: Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning.DukeUniversityPress,Durham(2007) 2. Candy, L., Edmonds, E.: Practice-Based Research in the Creative Arts: Foundations and Futures from the Front Line. Leonardo,51(1), 63–69 (2018) Proc. of the 17th International Symposium on CMMR, London, UK, Nov. 3-7, 2025 378 F. Ciotti and P. Hartono 3. 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