Interactive instrument-installation · 2026
RepiqueCode
Hands in the air draw, dance and play. A work that dialogues with Uruguayan candombe.
01 — The work
Repique Code is an instrument-installation that runs in the web browser and is played with the body. A camera reads the visitor's hands and arms in real time, and three modes turn those gestures into image and sound.
Drawing. With a gesture you draw in the air, and the lines appear on screen, shaken by the candombe rhythm.
Dance. With the arms you dance: thirteen movement gestures become sound and image.
Music. With the hands you play chords and notes over candombe-based rhythms. Hand height sets the tempo, the opening shapes the filter, and a looper records what you play.
No one needs to know music, drawing or dance. Two people can draw together or play together. At the end, each visitor can download the image they created and take it home.
The work is inspired by and dialogues with Uruguayan candombe, inscribed by UNESCO in 2009 as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It includes a real recording of candombe drums from an open dataset.
Play it now in your browser ↗Video of the work
Technical sheet
| Medium | Interactive instrument-installation for the web browser; sound art |
| Year | 2026 |
| Dimensions | Variable. Screen or projection, speakers or headphones, free space to move |
| Materials | Computer, webcam, screen or projector, audio, a small spotlight on the hands. No proprietary hardware |
| Tools and software | Hand and body tracking with MediaPipe; synthesis and sequencing with Tone.js on the Web Audio API; built with Vite |
| Audio | Candombe drum recordings: Jure & Rocamora dataset, CC-BY licence |
| Privacy | The camera image never leaves the device. The only thing that leaves, if the visitor decides, is the image they created |
| Code | Open source: github.com/damiancolo/repique-code |
| Premiere | Selected for Recorreguts Sonors 2026 — Centre Cívic Convent de Sant Agustí, Barcelona, 18 November 2026 |
02 — The story
How it came to be
Repique Code was born while I was building another work, Vínculos. To make it I had to learn hand tracking with a camera, and sound and physics running inside the browser. Every technology I found opened a new door. The hands that were learning to launch satellites were the same hands that knew candombe, the drum tradition of my country.
Repique Code is what that search left behind: a repository of possibilities that became a work in itself.
Some decisions shaped it. I chose the camera as the only sensor, so anyone with a laptop can play. The image never leaves the device. Drawing comes first, so that people who do not play music can enter. And the code is open: the work keeps changing with the ideas of the people who try it.
Process and documentation
03 — The artist
Damián Lafferranderie Peña (Maldonado, Uruguay, 1983) is a Uruguayan artist and creator based in Barcelona. He works at the crossroads of body, technology and cultural heritage. His interactive works run in the web browser and use the camera as their only sensor: the visitor's hands become the instrument.
He practised law in Uruguay for fifteen years. In 2023 the wave of artificial intelligence carried him to Barcelona, where he devotes himself fully to this revolution, and technology allowed him to make this kind of art.
He is the founder of Estudioprompt, an artificial intelligence studio whose purpose is to minimise the risks and maximise the benefits of this revolution. The works aim to be collaborative, open source and dynamic. In this space we are always looking for intelligent futures.
Contact
damianlafferranderie@gmail.com · estudioprompt.com · LinkedIn
Works
