Previous Work: Tech Rider, Check-ins, and various documentation

Tech Rider, Check-Ins, Documentation

<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>

Conceptual Mindset

This project gave me an excellent chance to explore the interactivity of sound and its surrounding environment, which in this case was water. For me, I have always found a solace in the pool. As a water polo player and former swimmer, long swim sets can be grueling and mentally exhausting, pushing you to unthinkable limits. In these moments, however, the water has a tendency of captivating you and containing the chaos. You hear inhaling and exhaling, the bubbles of the water, and the splashing of your hands and feet – and nothing else. While some believe these grueling sets to be dreadful, I always find myself with a strong urge to seek them out because I crave the unique relationship of my body with the simplistic aquatic surroundings.

With this in mind, the goal of my project was to replicate this understanding of hearing noises underwater. Specifically, I connected a waterproof piezo pick-up to my own body and swam in the pool. Depending on my location in the pool, the piezo picked up the noise playing from an underwater speaker. This pick-up, then, played into a speaker above water, ultimately providing the listeners around the pool with the sounds that I could hear underwater. In this way, my goal for the project was to bring the listener into the aquatic environment to gain a perspective of what it is like to be fully immersed and consumed by the surrounding water.

Process and Execution

On November 16^th, it came time to set up my project in the pool. There were numerous components that went into this set-up process:

• Wooden structure holding pulley system, through which speaker cable flows through
• 25-yard (length of swimming pool) speaker cable holding piezo pick-up
• Speaker system with piezo pickup input connected
• Lots of wires! (see tech rider in attachment above)

Overall, the set-up process was relatively complicated, so I had to arrive at the pool about an hour before observers arrived to make sure that I would not run late. In setting up, I did not run into any difficulties until I began to play from the underwater speaker. As Professor Topel and I decided, I would play very calm breathing through the transducer. This noise, however, was not audible to the piezo pickup in the pool unless it was within 5-10 feet from the noise emission. While changing the sound contradicted my original, intentional plan of playing breathing to simulate the noises of breathing in a swim set, we came to the conclusion that playing a sine wave frequency would work as well. After experimenting with various noises, I found that the piece actually functioned quite well under this process, and, in fact, it allowed for me to move the full length of the pool away from the transducer and still receive a strong pick-up.

Through this new setup, Professor Topel and I found that there was now an opportunity to play with the sine frequency to ultimately discover what the resonant frequency of the pool is. By fluctuating this frequency and having various listeners provide feedback on what was loudest, we were able to determine the characteristic frequency of the pool, which was very unique and allowed us to better understand the aquatic environment.

Further, I found the piece to be very exciting because the sound emitting from the speaker above water for the listeners was the exact same as the sound that I heard underwater as I was swimming. To me, this accomplished my original goal of providing the listener (above water) with an underwater experience, ultimately mimicking the sound of the swimmer to those standing along side of the pool. While playing the sine frequency, I even swim underwater with the piezo microphone and blew bubbles towards it, which after talking to the viewers of the piece, sounded incredibly realistic and was very interesting for them to hear.

From my original concept generation, to the process of creating the piece (wiring, constructing wooden pulley system, etc.), to the implementation of it in the natatorium, I found this project to be both rewarding and fulfilling. Many of the pieces that we learned about this term focused heavily on sound environments and the interactivity of the human body with these sounds. To me, I wanted to hone in on the idea of the human body being immersed in the water and fully captivated by the surrounding environment. One piece in particular that stands out to me in terms of similarity is titled Rain Room and was part of the Random International project. In this piece, the user enters into a room that is filled with rainfall – the noises consume the listener and the smells of the rain also fill the air around. In this moment, the individual viewing the process becomes a part of the environment, rather than a person viewing the environment – there is a notion of connectivity. Similar to Rain Room, I wanted my project to take the listener into the water and create an interactive and holistic viewing experience. Overall, I think I achieved my goals not only in creating and executing the piece, but also in learning more about sound art and our relationship with acoustic environments, interactivity of humans with sounds around us, and the importance of intentionality in the installation and implementation process.

Final Documentation of Project 

This image displays the setup of the wooden structure with sand bags placed on top. I decided to implement the setup in this way to prevent a situation in which the wooden structure would fall into the water and drag in expensive equipment with it. By putting two seventy-pound sand bags on top of the structure, I prevented this from happening. 

Here you can see the setup of the piece at a side angle. Additionally, I am the one presenting (in the pink-ish suit) along with Professor Topel (right) and visitors (left). You can also see the speaker cable flowing through the pulley system in this image.

Final Project Vid

Here, you can see the video of my presentation in-full. I presented the piece by swimming away from the transducer with the piezo in hand, towards it, and even took it deep underwater to blow bubbles towards it. Overall, I thought it was very fun and interesting to present to the visitors, and I think that they walked away with a new perspective of how sound interacts underwater as opposed to above.

I really enjoyed creating this project and hope you enjoyed listening to it as well!

In this portion of the class, we took an interesting look at non-cochlear art. Before going into these discussions, it was important to first have an understanding of what the word itself means – cochlea is essentially the spiral cavity of the inner ear, and it creates impulses and responses to sound vibrations over time. As major proponents of the field (such as Seth Kim-Cohen), sound itself is very much understood as a relationship-based construction. As he notes, we commonly think of wind blowing through grass, wheels on streets, forks clanking plates, etc. Similarly, we have found ourselves in a modern world in which sound produces vibrations in our ear, and we have thus cornered sound into this uniform definition.

As many of these artists note, however, sound can function in many ways the run contrary to this common understanding. For example, sound may function in a sound-like function and not actually end up making a sound. Terry Adkins has a great piece that highlights this idea quite well – the piece is titled Aviarium, in which Adkins has constructed a sound bite of a grasshopper sparrow and condensed it into a steel structure with a brass horn from a trumpet at the tip. To me, this piece does a great job of capturing the notion of non-cochlear art, as it makes no sound at first glance, but upon further inspection, we can see that there is an implied sound via the construction of the piece.

Further, Christine Sun Kim does an excellent job of capturing this idea of non-cochlear, which is development on Marchel Duchamp’s idea that visual expression is not simply “retina pleasure”; rather, it is much more conceptual than this. In Sun Kim’s Courtier as Courier, she places numerous iPads around a room with voiceless lectures playing on each one at different paces. For the listener, there is no sound other than the voices that fill the gallery – but what Sun Kim hopes is that there may be an implied sound coming from the running iPads. 

Lastly, we had an interesting reading in the Nichols book, focusing primarily on how to hack a toy by transforming radios, clocks, and many other objects. One of the main ways we can do this is by going through resistors, photoresistors, pressure pads, etc. In doing so, the Nichols reading does a great job of explaining the intricacies of each and a breakdown of how to do the “hacking” from start to finish.

This portion of the class was one of my favorites thus far, particularly because I think that our generation is at a very interesting time socially and politically. Specifically, I believe that the nation is divided among aspects of race, sexuality, and political identification – among all other things. While these issues definitely divide our nation and conversations may be unproductive as people remain overly staunch in their opinions, art offers an opportunity to breach this disconnect and allow individuals to explore art on their own – hopefully coming to a better understanding of this national and world-wide separation and acting on it in a positive way.

In observing the several pieces in this week’s artist studies, one of my favorites was Terry Adkins. After viewing his work in the Hood Museum recently, I was able to gain a newfound perspective on racial identity and subjugation throughout American history. Specifically, he had one piece titled Black Beethoven in which he took a portrait of Beethoven and slowly transforms it into a “black Beethoven” via digital art. The process is largely symbolic because many believe that it is quite possible that Beethoven was black, and yet our history shrouds this idea perceiving him as a white individual.

In doing so, society has placed him under the umbrella of largely classical and predominately “white” music, implicitly stating that a black person could not have produced such quality music and would not be “fit” for it. To me, Adkins’ piece opens our eyes to the tendency of white individuals to hide aspects of history that make them uncomfortable and the inability of white individuals to cope with racial equality. Today, we are thankfully in a society that welcomes all races to any type of music, but this piece opens our eyes to a painful notion of our past in which this liberty was not the case and issues of race (such as Beethoven’s) were swept under the rug.

In a similar vein, through artists like Christine Sun Kim, we learn about the notion of “sound etiquette,” which is the societal norms that we have formed around sounds in general. For Sun Kim, a deaf individual since birth, we see a different approach to sound – one in which sensory aspects of the body become a pivotal player in the appreciation of sound. Further, she appreciates sound not as an identifiable sound, but as an object, which she was able to display in a piece at dartmouth titled The Grid of Prefixed Acousmatics. In the piece, she used clay to fully understand how she visualizes various sounds. To me, the piece helped me understand that sound is not something that can flow through our ears; rather it is something that can be portrayed in a tangible and tactile way. Too often do we close off our perspective to the notion of “sound etiquette,” and Christine Sun Kim shows us that this is both unfortunate and only scraping the surface of sound possibilities.

This section of the course was great and gave me a new understanding of how sound and art can function as a medium through which we can defy societal norms – whether that be race or “sound etiquette.”

For this portion of the class, we learned about human and environmental interactivity, which I found to be very interesting. One of the works we analyzed was part of the Random International art composition. The piece itself was displayed in 2015 at the Yuz Museum in Shanghai and is called Rain Room. In the piece, the listener / observer becomes a fundamental component of the art itself – through interactivity with the piece, the observation of the art becomes the art itself. In this unique environment, the sounds of the rain fill the ears of the listener, while the smells of rain float through the air. A piece like this is interesting in that many artistic pieces lack this form of integration and interactivity – this piece marks an open door through which sound art allows us to take a new step into the field of art.

Another interesting piece from the Random International composition is titled Future Self and is a 3-D combination of glass, mirrors and light that essentially mimics human movement to bind the audience together with their “future self” or illuminated figure. Similar to Rain Room, this piece allows us to interact with the piece in a way that is unique to the field of art as we know it. While the responses do respond to the general movements of the performer or observer, there is a chaotic element to the piece that makes it unpredictable and enigmatic – something that I really enjoy to watch.

Another piece that highlights the idea of interactivity between human and art is in Chikashi Miyama’s piece Angry Sparrow. In the piece, the observer moves his or her hands above a sensor which activates various sounds that sound like an angry sparrow. Over the course of the presentation, the project can initially seem dysfunctional and relatively annoying; however, over time, this transforms into a more orderly and sensible peace over time, which makes the project enjoyable and fulfilling to observe. 

Lastly, I enjoyed Laura Maes’ piece Oorwonde, which is an audio operating table in which the listener can rest and explore the concept and understanding of bodily hearing. In the piece, there are sensors around the project that activate relative to movement around the body. Through these various vibrations around the body, Maes opens our eyes to the notion of bodily hearing, which is new and unique to the sound realm.

Overall, this portion of the class discussion was great for understanding the full extent to which we can incorporate sound art and our interactivity in to one piece. Too often do we see sound as one-dimensional – a situation in which we view the piece and nothing else. This section of the class opened my eyes to the possibilities of sound art and the ability to approach art from a different perspective.

For this portion of the class, we observed a portion of Kahn’s reading that involves an understanding of differentiating between different types of sound – sounds like music, noise, and phonography. Additionally, we spoke about acoustic ecology and observed many different pieces and field recordings. Kahn begins his discussion with a very interesting distinction: western art music effectively pushed away noises as sounds that music could not use. Over time, however, these “extramusical” sounds began to materialize themselves in western music in a number of ways. One of the most important ways, however, was Edison’s invention of the phonograph. Through this monumental discovery, we saw a transition into a world in which all sounds were incorporated into the world of music – as Kahn puts it, the phonograph “presented the possibility of incorporating all sound into cultural forms, shift[ing] cultural practices away from a privileging of utterance toward a greater inclusion of audition” (Kahn, 70).

Later, in the Nichols reading, we learn about the process of connecting oscillators and working with breadboards. I found this section to be very helpful in understanding how the various connections of the breadboard work, as the underpinnings of the board are simple once you fully understand how the connections work on the top. It was also very interesting to learn about oscillators (dividers, feedback loops, etc.) and the on/off features of photoresistors. Lastly, we learn about amplification and distortion and even have an example in which we amplify an electric guitar – a real world example that is interesting to learn about.

<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>

In this component of the class, we also learned about several artists that I found to be intriguing and thought provoking. Namely, I really appreciated the work of Jacob Kirkegaard through his work in Fairchild titled Transmission. In the piece, he plays various noises along all of the levels of the building, starting with deep rumblings on the first floor, all the way to chirping birds and wispy desert winds at the top. In fact, during the sound symposium, Kirkegaard spoke about the ability to always change a score from location to location, but for this piece (Transmission), you cannot recreate the piece from any other location as the noises are specific to the Arizona and Utah deserts. To that end, Kirkegaard does a nice job of demonstrating the existence of acoustic ecology and the specificness of work to a particular area – sometimes pieces do not have the flexibility that we might believe them to have.

Another interesting piece is Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller’s Forest (For a thousand years…), in which they take over 30 speakers and place them over a calm area in the forest. The listener sits on wooden stumps at the base of the forest canopy, listening to changes that happen ever so subtly above.

To me, this piece seems to do a fantastic job of creating a sphere around the listener – an acoustic ecology that consumes our attention and fascination. While the noises range from the rustling of grass to the shooting of a machine gun, there is a unique blend that makes the forest and noises coexist. It seems as though Cardiff and Bures do an excellent job in finding this medium and making the forest both natural and yet influenced by the sound art around them.

Overall, this section of the course was excellent in progressing my knowledge of the field and I really enjoyed it. Thanks!

For this week of the course, we focused primarily on Acoustic Architectures, while reading through Kahn’s chapter Significant Noises and Collins’ chapter Listening. In Kahn’s portion of the text, we immediate read a quote that sets the tone for the reading: “Flaws and imperfections are part of this total desired look” (Kahn, 20). As he continues to note, noise can be chaotic and violent, they can be transgression and generative. Importantly, he notes that noise itself has been the most counterproductive and emphatic sounds throughout modernism.

To me, what I found to be the most interesting in Kahn’s text was the discussion of heightened listening during the modernist era. Specifically, he mentions war and the fact that we, as humans, have an inability to see what is going on in the battlefield around us. For soldiers, these moments are filled with adrenaline and sightless abilities; instead, they have to rely heavily on their hearing senses. In these situations, violent, turbulent, and loud noises become the essence of war — the defining characteristic of anger and animosity.

Kahn’s description of the progress of hearing throughout the modern era made me wonder — where do I fit into this heightened sense of hearing movement? To me, I believe that noises influence me in a number of ways. The noises of New York, for example, were very difficult for me to handle as I am from Dallas where the nights are quieter and more pleasant. For some in our class (as we discussed), the noises of New York are associated with pleasant living and relaxation. Before the modern era, the bustling noises of the city were not prevalent — this development has infiltrated itself into the ears and into the lives of humanity, as Kahn helps us understand.

Later, in the Collins reading, we learn about the process of creating circuits and using radios to “eavesdrop on hidden electromagnetic music.” The most interesting portion of this reading was the discussion of Alvin Lucier’s Sferics (1980), in which he records the electromagnetic movements in the Earth’s ionosphere, where there were “tweaks”, “bonks,” and “swishes.” I found this to be particularly interesting in that he brings the sounds of our atmosphere into a tangible noise in front of our ears. Through Collins’ piece, we better understand the process of transferring electromagnetic movements into sound, a development that is very interesting.

<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>

In regards to acoustic architectures, I found Maryanne Amacher’s pieces to be very interesting. In particular, her piece City Links: Buffalo (1967) was a 28-hour piece that incorporated five microphones from around the city of Buffalo. These recordings were then broadcast through the cities local radio station. The piece is interesting as it connects the living environments of the city to the radio, which flows throughout the city — in offices, cars, houses, and so on. Further, she and a colleague John Cage produced a piece titled Lecture on the Weather in which they recorded twelve men reading Henry David Thoreau’s writing in Walden. Through these readings, they relate the words to inclement weather, to portray a political piece showing the direction they believed America to be heading on the nation’s 200th anniversary. Through these works that utilize acoustic architecture, it is clear that we can derive powerful meaning even from simple electromagnetic recordings.

I also found Bill Viola’s work to be quite interesting. As an artist that focuses heavily on sound environments and electronic music performances, I found his work to be particularly relevant to this section of the course. Specifically, I enjoyed his piece Electronic Renaissance, which places the listener into a beautiful mix of space, music and sound. This piece combines his love of his original home of Florence and the art that is present there. It combines the unique viewer experiences of these pieces with the powerful sounds that he associates with them, taking the listener/viewer into his own world — one in which many believe to be one of the his most profound pieces.

Overall, I found this section of the course to be great in fully understanding the importance of a sound environment and the acoustics that go into each piece. From the Kahn and Collins readings to the sound art pieces that we observed, there was an immense amount to learn and take with us going forward.

This week established a great foundation through which we will be able to dive into the rest of the course. In opening up the conversation about what sound actually means and how we can perceive it better, the Kahn reading provided a very strong understanding of what sound means. As he explains, sound pertains to the sounds, voices and aurality that falls within the auditive phenomena, which can be wide-ranging and often beyond what we typically think of as sound. As we learn early on in the text, sound has played a crucial role in the world’s history, and yet we often fall subject to the tendency of leaving these sounds behind – forgetting about their historical significance. As such, his text aims to discover the “political, poetical, and ecological” aspects of sound that have been drowned out by us over time.

One major discussion that he brings about during his brief description of post-modern sound is the implementation and significance of the phonograph (see below):

As the reading explains, this instrument concentrates on the intersection of sound with its surroundings – the touch, the vibrations, and the living environment that defines sound art. More specifically, Kahn explains that “the book concentrates primarily on ideas of phonography, by which I mean all mechanical, optical, electrical, digital, genetic, psychotechnic, mnemonic, and conceptual means of sound recording as both technological means, empirical fact, and metaphorical incorporation…” (Kahn, 16). To me, I found this discussion to be particularly interesting, as before the introduction of this instrument by Edison in the late 19th century, we had a lack of ability to preserve sound in an anecdotal way. As Kahn explains, the phonograph opens these doors, which were fundamental in sound art as a practice.

Next, in the Handmade Electronics Reading, we were able to learn about the construction and goals behind electronic production. In general, Collins lays out five simple goals for his electronic production framework: use battery powered projects, keep things simple, keep things cheap, to design by ear (not eye), and to to learn that there is no “right way” of doing things in sound art production, so we can “forgive and forget” easily.

In the next section, Collins provides us with a simple breakdown of the various components that go into electronic music production. He runs through sections describing how to listen to your projects (which amplifiers / drivers are best), the tools that are important to have in the production process, the parts, the batteries, and the architecture of the project. Overall, this reading (similar to the Khan piece) helps use better progress our initial knowledge of the sound art practice field and the ways in which we can approach the subject in a new and unique frame of mind.

<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>*<>

Alvin Lucier: One piece that I particularly liked in Lucier’s portfolio is titled I am Sitting in a Room. In this piece, Lucier repeats the words in the title of his piece into a room while recording the output from the speaker, and as he continues to do so, we end up arriving at the room’s characteristic resonance. Through this piece, Lucier shows us that each space has its own characteristic resonance that is unique to its environment and internal surroundings. Additionally, I found his piece titled Music on a Long Thin Wire, to be interesting, as Lucier uses a a horseshoe magnet and amplifiers to induce vibrations onto a wire. To me, both of these pieces provide an understanding of how sound interacts with space and how the installation completely depends on its surroundings.

Doug Hollis also had work that I found to be very interesting – particularly because of his pieces’ interaction with the wind blowing across the surfaces of his work. For example, his work titled Aolian Harp has a 27-foot-tall harp that is essentially played by the wind blowing between its strings, resulting an an eerie orchestra of sounds played naturally by its surroundings. Similarly, he has another piece titled Zephyr Trio, which has three tall poles, each with a panel that juts out perpendicular to the vertical pole. As the wind hits these panels, sound plays through the hollow vertical poles, resulting in the sounds of an organ being played by the wind. I especially liked these pieces by Hollis becuase they rely entirely on the sculpture shape as well as the installation of the piece (in relation to it’s surrounding environment).

Overall, each of these pieces were interesting, from Tinguely’s intricate and beautiful Tinguely Fountain in Switzerland to Natasha Barrett’s We are Not Alone piece, which occasionally erupts in movement when sounds play around it, I found each piece to be telling of the ways in which sound art can respond to acute changes in environments surrounding the displays. To me, there is a very clear interaction between physical movement and noise – an awareness that I was not as profoundly aware of before viewing the functionalities and intricacies of these pieces.