Posts filed under 'Audio'
The Laser harp by Jen Lewin, Blue Ink Studio is playing with the relationship between the physical and the digital, the virtual and the real. The "Laser Harps" is an immersive instrument and installation using movement and laser light to trigger sound. On her website she explains: “The use of light instead of a physical string plays with our perception of space and matter. What is physically not there (the virtual string), responds as if it were”.
via wmmna
October 23rd, 2006
Douglas Irving Repetto is an artist and teacher. His work, including sculpture, installation, performance, recordings, and software is presented internationally. He is the founder of a number of art/community-oriented groups including dorkbot: people doing strange things with electricity, ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show, organism: making art with living systems, and the music-dsp mailing list and website. Douglas is Director of Research at the Columbia University Computer Music Center. Here are a selection of his own projects that I especially like.
Foal
‘Foal’ was developed when the organizers of Festival Rümlingen 2005 asked Douglas to exhibit his earlier piece ‘Horse Table‘. Instead he chose to build a new version of the table, this time in the form of an awkward foal, or baby horse table. The foal knows even less about the world than its parent, and spends most of its time blindly moving its legs every which way in a largely futile effort to explore the world.
See Video
Slowscan Soundwave
Slowscan Soundwave is a series of pieces that attempt to create simple physical manifestations of complex physical, biological, and social phenomena. Sound travels through open spaces via the compression and rarefaction (expansion) of air molecules. For example, as the head of a drum vibrates, it pushes and pulls at the air around it. That pushing and pulling creates areas of higher and lower air pressure, which propagate out from the source in waves.
Slowscan Soundwave 1 uses a microphone to sample the ambient air pressure in its environment. It then uses those samples to change the alignment of seventy nine suspended plastic sheets in an attempt to create a visible analog to those constantly changing pressure fronts. Even the simplest of sounds is too complex, and changes too quickly, to be accurately represented by plastic sheets slowly moving this way and that. As a result the patterns formed by Slowscan Soundwave are a crude approximation of those formed in the air.
Slowscan Soundwave 2 much larger version of the work consisting of ten giant suspended strips of transparent mylar. They overlap to form a radial pattern. Each strip is attached, via a string, to one of two small motors. As the sound changes the computer changes the speeds of the motors. One motor’s speed is tied to the volume of the sound in the space: as the volume rises, the speed of the motor increases. The other motor’s speed is tied to the frequencies present in the sound: as the predominant frequency rises, the speed of the motor increases. “Since the mylar strips are transparent and were hung about 60 feet above the audience, their effect was very subtle. At times it was difficult to even see them, while at others they would catch a bit of ambient light and then shimmer gently, causing water-like refractions and reflections. The effect was a bit like shouting into a pool of still water: subtle but definite reactions to changes in ambient air pressure.”
Slowscan Soundwave 3 was a further iteration made of five 15′ tall columns of transparent mylar strips hanging from the ceiling and two long swoops of mylar cutting a V across the room. continues exploring the idea of making difficult to perceive phenomena a little more perceivable, while attempting to preserve some of the the subtlety and beauty that make the phenomena compelling in the first place. Douglas explains, “Here I was thinking a lot about the way sounds travel, and in particular the idea that when a sound happens in one place it has repercussions throughout the space. So when a truck goes by the front window and makes a BANG! as it bounces over a pothole it not only changes the air pressure where human ears are listening, but also causes vibrations in the remote corners of the room. The zigzagging twine connections between motors and mylar, and the placement of the motors as far as possible from the mylar they’re vibrating, are attempts to get at these ideas. See Video
puff, bang, reverb
There is a grid of small wooden blocks hanging from the ceiling of the space. Each block is attached to the ceiling via a piece of monofilament (fishing line) and hangs about 6" above the floor. In the middle of the grid are two motors, each with a short length of wood attached to its shaft. Hanging in front of the grid at mouth height are two wooden panels. The panels are air-activated switches — when you blow on them they turn on the motors. When a motor spins it strikes the surrounding blocks of wood. Those blocks in turn strike their neighbors, which then strike their neighbors, and so on. The spinning motor acts like an impulse, injecting energy into the grid of wooden blocks. As the blocks knock into one another that energy slowly spreads throughout the grid.
This is roughly analogous to what happens when you blow, clap, or otherwise introduce a sudden burst of energy into the air. Your action displaces air molecules, causing them in turn to displace their neighboring molecules. This action reverberates though the air, transmitting the energy from your action to distant parts of the space. puff bang reverb is a semi-accurate, two-dimensional hyper-zoom into the secret life of displaced air molecules.
October 20th, 2006
Hello world is an installation by Yunchul Kim that contains a codified audio signal that circulates in a closed (feedback) system, consisting of a computer, a speaker, 246 meters of copper tube and a microphone. By using the acoustic delay of the tube system, it is possible to store data. The longer the tube, the greater the time delay, which leads to greater memory capacity. In addition to this a screen shows a visual representation of the information traveling around the system. If a participant makes noises near the installation or hits the copper piping it interferes with the audio signal loop. For me what was most interesting was the play on standard architectural materials as a way of transmitting data and the way that anyone can experiment with creating interference within the system by simply making different noises.
September 22nd, 2006
Music for Bodies is a research project linking the sonic mapping of human bodies to architecture, through a practical study of bioresonance and interface building. Its aim is to discover new methods of experimental music making, as well as make new music more accessible to the wider community. It is doing this concentrating on making music to feel rather than just listen to. Currently it is making Sonic Beds around the world; it recently won an Award of Distinction for Digital Music at Prix Ars Electronica
"Kaffe Matthews’ Sonic Bed_London installation consists of a bed equipped with built-in loudspeakers; when installation visitors lie down on it, an endless loop of sounds washes over them. Due to their frequency and intensity, these sounds are perceived not only with the ears but also with the entire body in what is a very pleasant experience. The installation has already been exhibited several times and has proven to be a popular attraction with young and old alike since it harmoniously appeals to several different dimensions of human life. The choice of what is actually a rather intimate object used in everyday life as well as the proximity of other installation visitors opens up a strong social component. On the other hand, the installation also makes it possible to experience sound in a new way and thereby provides access to a new auditory dimension."
September 20th, 2006
Dust behaves unpredictably and is difficult to control. Besides that it is not especially popular, being regarded as "dirt" in our culture. As elusive as time seems to us it nevertheless leaves physical traces in the form of dust. The installation "From dust till dawn" made by Markus Decker and Dietmar Offenhuber kicks up a lot of dust and produces noise in the form of acoustic traces. The dust and atmosphere in the empty room form the installation’s interactive medium. Dust is identified by a surface laser and a photographic identification system and becomes a highly unusual means of
interaction. A grid of line lasers installed just above the floor produces a homogeneous carpet of light which is at first invisible. Objects and particles that pierce this carpet, such as dust, cigarette smoke or larger objects, become visible in the laser beams as a silhouette or an outline. The outlines and dust patterns are recorded and their two-dimensional movements converted to sound on an xy raster synthesizer. Every step the visitor makes, indeed his or her mere presence, sets the air moving and causes dust to swirl up. Its deals with a fragile interactive medium which is barely controllable and robs the term tangible media of its intangibility:
September 15th, 2006
"Re:orient – migrating architectures" explores the local aspects of China ‘s global significance and increasing influence. The project seeks to forecast possibilities which are now detectable only along retail channels, but which will, in all likelihood, determine the built environment, which transforms under the pressure of ever cheaper products. The project follows up this train of thought with the presentation of spaces, architectural devices and materials that create new contents, and indicate ways of turning these constraints of the market to our benefit, demonstrating how to infuse the mass products, which are designed to have a short life-span, with lasting cultural values.
The Hungarian entry for this year’s Venice Architecture Biennial is an installation that presents an alternative contemporary architectural experience built from thousands of functioning networked Chinese toys.
Instead of form they focus on the system, as an alternative to authored design they created DIY methods, re-appropriating cheap and ubiquitous technologies.
The website provides growing in-depth information about the different parts to the project as well as the system qualities of their architectural experiment in Venice and all the code used is provided open source. I only wish I could make it to Venice to see it.
Chief co-ordinator is Attila Nemes along with Adam Somlai-Fischer co-ordinating the installation and Samu Szemerey the website. A selection of the research texts are available to read here. A full list of the people involved can be found here. Below are the links to the individual projects that make up the whole installation.
September 8th, 2006
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