Color a Sound

Installations don’t have to be complicated to be fun. Color a Sound is more like an instrument, and it is not very difficult to operate: you use a colored marker to draw lines or shapes and you will hear the result immediately.   

To keep things simple and easy to operate, also for a untrained musician, only the major scale is used. Blue dots can be drawn to trigger the sounds of a vintage 808 drum computer, although this does not seem to work very well because it is impossible to keep it running at a constant speed. 

SONOMATERIA

It is a multi-user sound sculpture, installation, tangible sound interface and inter sensory composition, according to Irad Lee, the creator of SONOMATERIA. The interface is quite similar to the ReacTable, although there is no visual feedback, users have to use their ears to understand what is going on. 

The physical objects are made of 16 different materials, such as coal, cork, wood, sponge and iron, which all add their own distinct sonic touch to the composition, created in real-time by by the users. 

Dataflux

Dataflux, created by Kit Webster is a wonderful installation with synchronized sound and images. The visuals are projected on seven pillars, and the sound greatly enhances the experience of movement. Dataflux has some resemblance to Minus 60° by Karl Kliem. Again I cannot help thinking of Ryoji Ikeda’s work when watching this video, also because of the name, as it’s very similar to Ikeda’s Dataplex. For Dataflux Webster created software that renders the visuals live. 

Kit Webster will be one of the artists at this year’s Liquid Architecture festival in Australia taking place in June and July. 

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Pieces Of You

Pieces Of You is an installation created by Yoon Chung Han. It consists of eight pillars with mirrors attached to them who can turn around and seem to follow visitors with their reflections. There is a directional speaker in each pillar and moving around causes the harmonies to change. 

I like the idea of using directional speakers to create an ever-changing soundscape influenced by the position of the viewer. Looking at the movie below does not really reveal a lot of sonic depth though, as what we hear is a repetition of the same material. I wonder if it would be more interesting to not only reflect the visitor’s image, but also the sound he makes?

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Sun Boxes

This is one of those installations that I would love to encounter, while wandering in the desert for instance. Sun Boxes is a sound installation consisting of 20 speakers, independently operating. For those of you who have not seen it on the many other sites who showed this: each speaker has a built-in solar panel and contains a guitar sample.

The speakers are spread around so visitors can enter the installation to enjoy the ever changing composition from various sides. The installation, created by Craig Colorusso is completely solar powered and the music stops when the sun sets. A great way of showing we can create beautiful things only using natural resources. 

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Waves by Daniel Palacios

Waves is a wonderful installation created by Daniel Palacios. Using just a piece of elastic string, spun around by two electro motors, the most wonderful waveforms are shown, from simple sine wave patterns to complex smoke-like images, moving lines woven together, floating in the air:

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Fabric Machine Plays Fabric Like a Tape

There is something fascinating about playing the sounds of seemingly unplayable things. We have seen how in Harvest by Olle Cornéer and Martin Lübcke the soil gets played like a record, with a huge needle. In Fabric Machine we can listen to the sound of fabric, being played like a tape. 

The machine, created by Kathrin Stumreich in Vienna, plays multiple loops of fabric. Light sensors are used to generate the sounds and the quality and density of the cloth determine the pitch and the rhythm of the sound. So for example, the number of threads interrupting the light per second determine the pitch of the sound. 

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Whispering In The Leaves

In this short documentary Chris Watson tells us about his sound installation Whispering In The Leaves. The installation allows us to listen the sound of places most of us have never been, mysterious and fascinating.

He tells us how he is carefully “fishing for sounds” on the rainforest floor in South and Central America. Chris has been recording for many years. Living in a city I sometimes forget about the variety of sounds in this world. Amsterdam sounds different than Mexico City, but what about all those forests, swamps, lakes, creeks and all the creatures living there!

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Listen to The Sonic Body

Have you ever wondered what your body sounds like, from the inside? I have, and I actually recorded some bowel sounds once using a stethoscope I borrowed from a doctor friend. The Sonic Body is an interactive installation which allows visitors to experience what the human body sounds like.

From the outside the installation does not reveal any of its secrets, it is just a plain wooden cylinder. While entering the ‘body’, visitors will see a glowing representation of our organs. They can explore the different sides of The Sonic Body by touching it. This will trigger the sounds, which are played back omnidirectionally to increase the feeling of immersion. 

The installation was created by Thomas Michalak, Harry Neve and Anna Orliac. To record all those bodily sounds they collaborated with a heart surgeon. They used instruments like stethoscopes and hydrophones and recorded in an anechoic chamber to capture even the slightest sound. 

The artist is not performing for an audience this time. It feels like we are intruders, literally listening to the artist’s inside. See The Sonic Body website to learn more about this highly intimate piece of art:

www.sonicbody.co.uk

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Rechnender Raum

At this year’s Sonic Acts festival I had an encounter with Rechnender Raum, a wonderful, seemingly living installation created by Ralf Baecker, operating similar to a basic artificial neural network. The open construction allows visitors to see every single moving detail of the machine. 

I was amazed by the complexity of the fragile wooden structure and the network of strings, all connected to the moving outline of a torus in the center of the installation. 

While Rechnender Raum (German for calculating space) gives us a lot to look at, and it is nice to walk around the structure and inspect every small element up-close, I also enjoyed the soft, insect-like chirping of the small electronic motors keeping the network alive and slowly moving.  

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