Some Experiments on Sound

Here are some experiments on possibilities to use electronic sounds. I gathered pieces of equipment  that we used in several projects where non-convential sound (i.e. front of stage loudspeakers) was needed. Namely: 1) Super Tooth Disc04 (used in early stages of Cidades Invisíveis); 2) Altec-Lansing IMT227 (used in Opus 7 and BBPP); 3) Super Tooth DiscoTwin (used in Babelim); 4) Fonestar Vibration Loudspeakers (TDO15 and TDO25) (used in Pianoscópio and Babelim). I fed them with audio from BBPP coming from a mp3 player.

I was particularly interested in the idea of  portable sound sources that would allow "moving the sound around" (this would mean the possibility of reconfiguring the distribution of sound in space as well as playing with movement both for the body and the sound source. I was also interested in the idea of "feeling the sound", i.e.. tactile feed-back in addition to auditory. I started by using some very basic solutions, stereo foam eggs and balls in which I placed the Altec Lansing loud speaker. 

The sound suffers a lot (in volume and quality) but I think it is possible to find a solution that would preserve it. It is really nice to move to sound around to share it with others and above all to feel it (there is a lot of vibration). There are many possibilities to improve the volume and quality, either working with this type of material or with other. And off course the aspect can be whatever we want (see for example last image of a ball covered with the flocking technique). I believe that Super Tooths (both) would also produce interesting results but I did not have big enough eggs or spheres to put them inside. But only working with sound being fed via the audio input, not via bluetooth. My experience with bluetooth in several artistic projects tells me not to do it here, particularly if moving around. The vibration loudspeakers don´t work either (I was really keen about this since they are particularly effective in making the sterofoam to vibrate) and even if we would make solid balls or eggs rather than empty as it was the case, we would always have the problem of "shaking" and "turning upside-down" (I might have damaged the TDO25 in a later experiment which I describe)

I also experimented with an aluminium campanula from Babelim (I simply placed the Altec Lansing inside). I works really well both as an object to hold and move around and as a sound source. In fact the sound its louder and I dare to say better. Again, this might not be the right aspect as far as the finishing and material is concerned, but ut would not be very difficult to find good alternatives. The shape of the object, however, might be a bit self referencial.

 The experiments with vibrating loudspeakers are a bit difficult to interpret. I´ve using them in projects like Pianoscópio and Babelim with excellent results but in those circumstances they are placed on the harmonic board of pianos. The idea of having a sound-irradiating-floor is something that I started to think about well before the ZYG project was conceived (last image is an early sketch for an immersive space that I started to imagine after an experience of sound massage in pitagoric table). So, I tried hard stereo foam and some thin wood planks as well as wood boxes. The sound results are a bit disappointing (gets better with boxes) but the vibration with the stereo foam is great. It reminds me the experiments we did at CdM when we were working with deaf people but with much better results, I think. Feeling the vibrations in the body is great but I might have damaged the TDO25 while exploring the possibilities. Definitely they don´t like to be moved around. It could, however yield good results in the floor. It would always involve many wires.