UPIC Ludique 1

L’UPIC Ludique is a new electronic instrument that reimagines Xenakis’ UPIC (Unité Polyagogique Informatique CEMAMu) as a children’s toy. With a minimal wooden interface and coloured pencils as controllers, users can draw and manipulate raw audio waveforms, employing techniques such as granular synthesis through a playful and tactile interface.

Developed in the late 1970s, the original UPIC enabled composers to generate sound by translating drawn shapes into musical parameters such as pitch, dynamics, and timbre. Its graphical interface represented a radical new mode of composing — one that fused visual thinking with sonic imagination. Yet in today’s landscape of touchscreens, laptops, and multi-function devices, this direct, physical connection between gesture and sound has largely been replaced by abstract digital mediation.

L’UPIC Ludique revisits the UPIC’s pedagogical and haptic origins, questioning what might be regained by returning to pencils, paper, and wood as compositional interfaces. This re-embodiment of obsolete synthesis technology invites reflection on how design decisions shape musical behaviour and creative agency. By positioning L’UPIC Ludique both as an instrument and as a pedagogical tool, the project investigates the consequences of reinterpreting historical technologies for contemporary creative practice — including composition, improvisation, and education.

Through this work, I aim to explore how the aesthetics, intentions, and limitations embedded in an instrument’s design can influence not only the sounds produced but also the types of thinking, playing, and learning it affords.