During one of our in-class projects, I worked with a group in creating an “anything” speaker – while some groups had to create projects that were large or small in scale, ours could take any shape that we saw fitting. So, naturally, we decided that we would put together a speaker that looked like a cactus, and we called it “cactus speaker.” For this speaker, our goal was to create an experience that had lots of variability in sound protrusion through the various “arms” of the cactus and the level of noise relative to the location of the driver within the cactus shape.

For us to accomplish this goal of variability in sound, we had to form our shape very carefully. As you can see in the picture below, we have a main base of the cactus, from which two “arms” emerge – one in an L-shape, the other being a straight arm. Additionally, we left the base of the cactus open and the top had a makeshift horn to amplify the noise emitting from the top of the cactus.

To make the experience interesting, the visitor had the option of placing the driver anywhere within the cactus – typically most chose to put it in one of the two arms (L-shaped or straight). In doing so, there were different sounds at different amplifications each time. Further, the visitors location with respect to our cactus speaker made a large difference in terms of the noise volume experienced from the cactus speaker. By placing your head in line with the base and horn of the cactus, the volume of noise was much greater than if you were outside of it, which was fun to play around with throughout the exhibition.

Below, you can see a more in-depth diagram that spells out the various mechanisms that we used to organize our project and accomplish our visitor experience goals. As I mentioned before, the form of the speaker contains a base, two arms and a horn at the top. Our signal source was a MacBook, which connected via auxiliary cord to an amplifier, which then connected to a driver that fed into the straight arm of the “cactus speaker.” While this is the design of our project, here, we also put the driver in various other locations of the cactus to experience with sound variability.

In analyzing our “cactus speaker” further, I was able to draw many connections with Michel Chion’s Three Modes of Listening.” Specifically, Chion speaks about three different types of listening: causal, semantic and reduced. In linking these various forms of listening to my piece, I found that each component was a part of the “cactus speaker.” For the causal, part of the listening experience was finding where exactly the best location was to hear the noise and where that noise was coming from within the cactus – there was an examination part of the piece which made the visitor as “how” and “what” after first glance. In further observation, it was interesting to move the driver within the “cactus speaker” to determine which location provided the clearest sound – a sound through which we could discern words clearly and understand all of the lyrics of a song. Lastly, there was a prevalence of reduced listening with our “cactus speaker” – listening that Chion describes as focusing “on the traits of the sound itself, independent of its cause and of its meaning.” For the “cactus speaker,” the full user experience took time to fully understand the form of the object, the location of the driver in relation to this shape, and the different types of noises that you can experience from the speaker. Like Chion explains, there were never any two identical noises that could come from the speaker, and this variability rendered itself to interpretation and diagnosis from the listener – a process that is lengthy, but also very enjoyable and educational. Overall, these three components (primarily the reduced listening) helped to make the “cactus speaker” not only an enjoyable project to create, but also an enjoyable project to experiment with and dissect through its variability of sound emission.

I found this project to be a great lesson in understanding how sound responds to different changes in volume. In making my project, I wanted to take a different look at how a moving wall will interact with frequencies in a closed area, with a small hole opening in the side through which the sound may emit from the piece.

In constructing my piece, I was very intentional in the materials that I used; I used a large styrofoam box (that I had to carve out – very messy), because I think it did a nice job of holding in the sounds that were playing from my speaker at one end of the box. To line my piece, I used duct tape, which allowed for my sliding wall to move easier.

In creating the piece, I struggled in executing my final goal of having the sounds change drastically as I slid the moving wall because of small inefficiencies in the shape of my wall in regards to the actual form of the box – there were small gaps through which noise could sneak through, resulting in an imperfect final sound product.

That said, there are still small effects, that you can hear in the audio aspects of the videos shown below. Overall, I thought this project was great and helped me in understanding how to capture frequencies and best emit those noises through a small opening. The opening for my hole was not determined via a calculation; rather, moving the wall around helps you arrive at the perfect volume within the box that corresponds with the area of the hole opening. In other words, you can essentially back into the correct volume by changing the distance of the wall, as the hole through which the sound leaves (on the side) remains constant.

Lastly, in using the piece, I decided to play music that was very deep at times, but also had fluctuating resonances throughout. This allowed for interesting effects and I was able to see how the wall reacted with the sound at different points of the song. I chose a piece by one of my favorite artists, Kygo, and I think that this piece went nicely with my final product.

I enjoyed creating my project, and it was great to further my knowledge of sound art through a creative piece like this. Thanks! 

For this piece, I decided to put together the environmental setting of a war scene. In starting my piece, I included the basic concepts of gun firing and quick breathing, but over time I realized that there is so much more that goes into creating an environmental perspective with sound. As I began to add more attributes to the setting (air planes, foot steps, heart beating, crows), it made me acutely aware of just how much goes on sound-wise in our surroundings.

I enjoyed taking these sounds and organizing them in a way that made sense and seemed natural. By varying / randomizing the order of each sound clip, I was able to put together a sound environment that sounded organic, rather than contrive and on a loop. In my piece, the only component that I believe may seem on a loop is the emergency siren in the background; this noise, however, would be on a loop in real life, so I left it like this to make the environment realistic.

Overall, I enjoyed working on this progress and believe that it was able to further not only my technical capability of working with Ableton, but also made me more aware of the constantly changing sound environments around me.