The product designer and synthesiser craftsman Love Hultén, who hails from Sweden, has an intriguing small-scale production practice creating bespoke audiovisual art equipment that prompts audiences to think about the materiality and utility of technology in diverse ways. The instruments he creates are no less rarefied than designer watches or one-off luxury vehicles, and it is appropriate to think of audiences rather than consumers for these objects.

The Swedish designer discusses his creative journey, telling STIR: “As a young boy, I used to tear electronics apart trying to understand their insides. I guess I've always had a thing for that. During my bachelor years at Design HDK-Valand [at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden] in 2010, I stumbled upon wood and fell in love. I started to combine woodworking with electronics the very first year and made a wooden desktop computer. And I just kept making stuff, game consoles and other audiovisual contraptions that combine traditional craftsmanship with modern technology.”

Hultén considers himself to have been “raised by arcade games”, possessing a deep love for this facet of video games and its associated craftsmanship, so much so that he even created a cabinet piece as tribute to his passion, for his bachelor exam in 2014. This piece went viral, and the craftsman began receiving his first orders. He explains that the audiovisual equipment industry can feel quite monotonous, so people must have found something exciting and off the beaten track with his work. In his words: “I had no competition and that put my pieces in the spotlight and gave me a lot of creative freedom.” Hultén continues, “I did arcade cabinets for a lot of years but grew tired of repeating myself. I needed something new. I was playing in a band at the time and had a new-found passion for analogue synths, so there it was. I didn't expect it to work from a selling point at all, I just wanted to have some fun. I've been doing commissioned synths for over four years now so I guess I'm doing something right.”

One of Hultén’s noteworthy projects, and a shining example of the craftsman’s audio engineering ingenuity, is a synthesiser that seems to draw sound from cacti. He explains that this was an important project for him and that translating biodata from organic material into audio is something that he has been fascinated by for some time now. Desert Songs (2023), as the project is titled, uses the citric acid-rich electrolytic solution present in cacti, to trigger Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) notes. Hultén completed the piece with a custom MIDI visualiser that mimics chloroplasts, which are micro-organelles within the cells of plants, as seen under a microscope. He tells STIR that he subsequently expanded upon the project through another music synthesis device, using a deciduous tree for more bio-activity. He is excited at the prospect of continuing his “plantwave” pieces and is considering the possibility of undertaking a public art piece in the future.

Viewing Hultén’s work, one sees many historical references and cultural pasts in the pieces created by the audiovisual artist. “I play a lot with values and standards, suggesting a different perspective on how to relate and interact with objects. The smashed-up references in my work have a triggering effect I think. Nostalgia is involved to a certain extent but it's not looking backwards. It's taking steps in different directions simultaneously by using fragments from both the past and today, creating unique and balanced objects. And I've always been into retrofuturism and science fiction from the 1950s and 1960s. I guess that's pretty obvious. My work is pretty much the perspectives of [the German designer] Dieter Rams on design combined with an attraction for objects of mystique. I just want to give my personal view on the world and present an alternative.”

Hultén plans to spend the remainder of the year working on commissioned audio equipment building projects for private clients, which will likely see him repurposing a great deal of synthesiser parts from commercially-available products. He also mentions having a few collaborative projects in the works, which he will reveal at a future date.

The craftsman has been occupied with his practice for over a decade now and remains excited by his work. In Hultén’s words: “Combining woodwork and electronics is like driving an endless road with exciting exits everywhere. If I'm ever sick and tired in a current field or feel stuck in repetition, I can always take another exit.” For now, he has no plans to expand and is content to run his small-scale business and to continue enjoying the degree of creative agency it gives him.