Swedish designer Love Hultén has launched his first monograph, Works. For the past six years, the artist, audiovisual specialist, and skilled woodworker has become famed for his unique approach to electronics design. Typically, Hultén works on commission, taking the innards of a much-loved piece of kit – be it a synthesiser, console, or computer – and reinventing it in a new housing as a piece of functional electronic art.
Echo Observatory V2, a visual synthesiser by Love Hultén
The Gothenburg-based designer doesn’t just re-house classic electronics; he also creates unique new instruments. Works is a journey through an eclectic, electric archive, chronicling his colourful and eccentric builds with a focus on the finished, perfect object, with a minimal look at the process and the function.
A bespoke case for the original 1976 Apple
Over the years, Hultén’s eccentric instruments have been commissioned by musicians and collectors, both as unique works of art but also as fully functional devices that can take their work to new places with a fresh approach to interface design and ergonomics.
The Echo Observatory (left) and VOC-25 (right)
Projects like the Echo Observatory v2 are strictly for aesthetic appreciation – the wooden console is a visual synthesiser that generates fractal-like patterns.
In a similar vein is Hultén’s bespoke case for a 1976 Apple I, one of many projects that amplifies the style of early computer culture in a modern, highly crafted idiom.
Hultén's bespoke case for the Apple 1
The MMXS was inspired by the classic construction toy Meccano and the work of composer and inventor Martin Molin to create an analogue blend of mechanical movement and a synthesiser engine.
Hultén’s playful but beautifully crafted mix of high and low tech is also demonstrated in the VOC-25, with its combination of plastic teeth and a keyboard-controlled sample bank.
The MMXS synthesiser
The Doodlestation is a fine example of Hultén’s more ambitious projects. A custom housing, it contains a number of rebuilt synths, including a Sequential OB-6, a Moog DFAM, a Microcosm from Hologram Electronics and a Theremin module, along with a tape echo and bespoke graphics.
Hultén’s Doodlestation
Three hundred copies of the book were initially printed, with a second run in the works.
You’ll have to combine this tactile experience with a trawl through Hultén’s various websites to get the full sound and vision experience of his work.
A detail of the MMXS
Love Hultén, Works, $39 plus shipping
For more information, visit lovehulten.com