Vibrations and how they get to your ears.
Noise for airports is a blog about culture, sound, music, and technology.
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Updated (sometimes) by Nick Seaver.
I found this video over at Everyday LIstening:
Staalhemel (steel sky) is an interactive installation created by Christoph de Boeck. Using a wireless device for capturing brain waves, the participants’ brain activity influences the activity of the installation.
The installation is quite aesthetically pleasing, although I’m curious about the practicalities: only one person at a time? does a line form for people waiting to get their brainwave hats? what happens if multiple people walk around? could you have two classes of people—one with the hats and “control” over the sound and one without? and so on.
It reminds me of Alvin Lucier’s “Music for Solo Performer” (embedded in this old post on brains), which produced a similarly cacophonous percussion from brain waves. I’m not sure, but I imagine it’s actually the exact same principle at work here. The man in the video says the new helmet has “8 channels of brain waves,” whatever that means, so perhaps things have gotten a little higher resolution, but it’s still interesting that people make live brainwave analysis into clatter.
Staalhemel seems to be an installation-ized version of what, for Lucier, was a meditation (literally! hurr) on performance. Interesting stuff.
You might also want to check out my “brains” tag for some old posts about brain music.
(via Everyday Listening)
I’ve posted this work before, but this is a new video, and I adore this installation so much.
(via Sound and Music)
condemned_bulbes is a sound and light installation created by digital creation studio artificiel. The installation was first exposed in 2003 but is still shown at festivals around the globe.
It is really nice to see a sound installation involving light bulbs that actually uses the sound of light bulbs, rather than just their on/off capabilities.
(via Everyday Listening)
“Without Records” is an installation by Japanese noise/turntable/multi-talented artist Otomo Yoshihide, put together for the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media.
It consists of about a hundred modified record players distributed around the space, all playing without any records on them. This results in a variety of noise sounds emanating from the players which change as visitors interact with them.
Score for a Hole in the Ground is an installation in a forest, “near the village of Challock in Kent.” It consists of this large phonograph-like cone connected to a pipe that descends into a well. The dripping sounds from the wet environment (and nearby pond) are broadcast by the cone, producing aleatory music from the environment.
It’s a beautiful installation, and you can see more lovely pictures and hear how it sounds at the project’s web site.
(via oddstrument)
This is an interesting proof-of-concept for a subway installation that lets people swipe their MetroCards in long slots on the wall, which sense it and produce a little sound and light show.
It looks like there are just sensor points that play predetermined things when swiped past, although having it extrapolate music from the actual card data would be cooler. In Boston, where we have the RFID Charlie cards, it might be interesting to do a similar thing with RFID readers—you could have the installation sense them while they’re still in your pocket!
It would be a fittingly creepy/pretty way to use RFID chips, I think.
(via Displaced Sounds)
More things to do on my inevitable trip out to western Massachusetts:
As traffic passes by, its noise generates a sympathetic resonance in the columns of air inside the tubes. High-pitched sirens and even voices generate higher harmonics, while the low rumble of trucks creates low ones. The sound is carried from the microphones in the tubes to a control room, where the sound signal is then amplified and transmitted to the concrete cube speakers under the bridge. There are no electronic effects added. The sounds have been simply extracted from the traffic noise above, as one might extract precious metal from a baser substance.
You can hear a sound clip here, or see a short video at the “harmonic bridge” link at the bottom of this page.
(via MASS MoCA)
