Jon Kulpa’s works explore sound mass, algorithmically generated sound texture, spatial sound, and interactivity. His most recently completed project, QuBits, is a virtual reality (VR) sound-space. A user navigates this environment while wearing a VR headset, encountering many virtual characters that each have a type of appearance and sonic identity. Using hand controllers, a user is able to affect the audiovisual behavior of virtual characters and evolve these behaviors over time. His work in progress, QuFoam, is a set of études written for another audiovisual engine. Computer code generates a sound mass consisting of 450 sonic particles, organized into 9 waves. High level controls allow a performer or user to interact with and shape timbre and density over short-term and long-term durations. QuFoam will eventually be implemented as an interactive installation for a community of users. His concert works have also explored sound mass and spatialization by placing performers and loudspeakers at various positions in the performance space.
Jon currently teaches music and computing as a Lecturer at UC Berkeley. He studied composition at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with David Garner and graduated with his B.M. in 2010. He obtained both his M.A. and his PhD from UC Berkeley, where his primary teachers were Edmund Campion and Franck Bedrossian. He completed his dissertation in August 2019.
See Jon Kulpa's project for Negative Expanse (link)
