Sound CAD

16.1 channel sound installation by John Wynne
Video installation by Moe Ekapob and Kevin Ling

The sound installation component of this piece was impossible to document: it was in total darkness, so there was nothing to photograph; the sound was inextricably site-specific and dependent on 16 separate channels and a large subwoofer. It began in response to a CAD (Computer Aided Design) drawing made by one of the AA participants as an aid to the discussion of what we would do in this space. My initial idea was to try to make the equivalent of a CAD drawing using only sound, starting with a 3-dimensional ‘wireframe’ line drawing to trace out the dimensions of the space and then rendering the walls with ‘sheets’ of sound. The challenge was to find sounds which would remain localised as much as possible to the surfaces of the space but which were also sufficiently distinguishable from each other to allow the visitor to negotiate the space using only sound, in the total absence of light.

Cable cable

Just some of the speaker wire required for Sound CAD's 16.1 channels.

Watch this space

The fixed parameters of the space (physical dimensions) will be defined by creating the sonic equivalent of a CAD drawing, building up from corner points to wireframe to rendered walls. Within this framework, the dynamic parameters of the space (light, humidity, sound, human activity) will be measured and the changes reflected through the interactive manipulation of sound materials gathered from the building itself.

Rats 'like a laugh'

It is not known if rat jokes exist but scientists say giggling, ticklish rats have provided them with the first credible evidence that animals unrelated to humans can laugh.

SOURCE: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/

Let's make a work for the animals in the building...

Rats and ultrasound

Humans can hear sounds from about 16 to 20,000 Hz (20 kHz)*. Anything above 20 kHz is called "ultrasound," because those sounds are higher than we can hear. Anything below 20 Hz is called infrasound – elephants communicate over miles with low, rumbling infrasound.

Rats can hear ultrasound: the range of the rat's hearing is around 200 Hz to 80 or 90 kHz (Fay 1988, Kelly and Masterson 1977, Warfield 1973). There is a whole world of high frequency sound out there that rats can hear that we cannot, a perceptual difference that humans tend to forget (Milligan et al. 1993, Sales et al. 1998).

Cemetery Grand

Who says there's no such thing as silence?