A Balloon for Linz

I just came back from New York City, a place with an overwhelming sound, everywhere you go. And each location in a city like that has its own resonance, its own sonic identity. That’s hard to hear though if there is so much noise around it becomes a cacophony. But what if we could isolate this resonance and listen to the astonishing differences in the sound of urban spaces? 

Davide Tidoni did just that with A Balloon for Linz. Luckily Linz is not NYC, and he was able to find spots which were quiet enough to make a clear recording (using his nice helmet mount microphone). You might recognize the concept as Davide did something similar before.

Architecture like frozen music

What does sound look like? It’s a question we have seen answered by quite some artists, creating sculptures of sounds, frozen at one moment in time. Like Yes/No by Carsten Nicolai or the Rolex Tower soundwave sculpture. Never have I seen something like this Orproject design though. 

Christoph Klemmt, working for London based architecture and design firm Orproject, made this design for the Busan Opera House in South Korea, titled Anisotropia. The design is based on a twelve tone composition created by Klemmt, and while it remains unknown how exactly the composition is translated to the building, it is quite a remarkable sight, and I can only imagine the acoustic properties of a place like that. 

Thanks to Richard van Tol

Sonophore

It’s been almost two months since the last post on Everyday Listening. Summer came, I moved to a new house, and went offline for most of the time. Now the start of a new academic year is approacing and Everyday Listening is slowly waking up again. 

We start off with Sonophore, an project by the same group of people who made the Analog Tape Glove: Signal to Noise. Instead of a canvas full of tape, Sonophore offers a single line tape across the walls. A glove with a built-in tape head can be used to play tape and explore the sonic possibilities of the installation. To hear what this sounds like, watch the video below:

Click to read more ...

Visual Soundscapes

Looking at these images, is there a sound that comes to mind? What do shapes and colors do with that sonic image in your mind? Pablo Padilla Jargstorf, the creator of these Visual Soundscapes, calls them “intuitions of visual sound”. 

Click to read more ...

The Organ of Corti

The idea is wonderful: recycling the noises of a busy city and filtering them to create something beautiful, making people aware of the sounds surrounding them, which always is a good thing. That said, I wonder how well it works, especially when the listener is surrounded by noise. 

The Organ of Corti is a sound installation created by Liminal, a partnership between sound artist and composer David Prior and architect Frances Crow. The Organ of Corti won the PRS New Music 2010 Award, and will premiere at the City of London festival, July 2011. 

! at TodaysArt Festival

This weekend I visited the TodaysArt festival in The Hague. The festival explores the newest forms of art, music and technology. After having some fun with RovoVox, a giant 8 meter tall robot that will speak any text you send via SMS, I entered the impressive Atrium, The Hague’s city hall to be surprised by !. 

! is an installation by sound artist and researcher Anke Eckardt, which explores her theory of ‘vertical hearing’. Every three minutes a sound comes from above and ‘drops’ into a puddle of black water. It seems like an invisible object causes the splash, yet it must be a huge woofer beneath the surface.

Click to read more ...

A Balloon for... a Water Tower

The cities we live in contain many places with marvelous sonic properties, but who is aware of them? Concrete, towers, a hole in the wall. It might just take a little amplification to bring them to life. A popping balloon might also work. 

With A Balloon for… a Water Tower Davide Tidoni shows us the amazing effect the sound of a popping balloon creates in front of the water tower of Santarcangelo. The project invites the average passers-by to listen a bit more careful to the world around them. Watch the movie and listen to the effect:

Click to read more ...

Rolex Tower Soundwave Sculpture

For the entrance hall of the Rolex Tower in Dubai, James Clar created the Rolex Tower Soundwave: a massive sculpture resembling a sound wave, made of stainless steel.

The sculpture is like an abstract name tag for the building, as the artist recorded his own voice, saying “Rolex Tower”. The waveform of this recording in 3D form was then used as blueprint for the sculpture. The sculpture blends in very well with the architectural design of the building:

Click to read more ...

Sonorous Bench: Sound Art in Public Space

There is a small tunnel underneath the railroad in Amsterdam where sounds similar to dripping water come from the walls. The first time I passed it I did not notice it right away, as the sounds are not very loud. But then I realized the experience of passing through that tunnel was more pleasant than usual. I love these sonic surprises and I wish I would encounter more of them throughout the city. 

This Sonorous Bench created by Clint Davis, Jaime Oliver, Jacob Sudol and Chris Warren, all students at the San Diego’s music department of the University of California, is another great example of sound art in public space. Two transducers emit resonance frequencies of the bench, and make it sing. It is not too loud, just a nice, subtle addition to the urban soundscape. 

The Wave Organ in San Francisco

This is probably a familiar place for the locals, but believe it or not, I had never heard of the Wave Organ in San Francisco before. The concept of this acoustic sculpture was developed by Peter Richards, and installed in collaboration with George Gonzales. 

The construction of the Wave Organ was completed in 1986 and treats visitors to sonic surprises ever since. As the water moves in and out of the pipes as the waves hit, wonderful sounds are generated. It is not loud, and to fully enjoy it visitors need to listen actively. 

I think an installation like the Wave Organ demonstrates a great way of creating a sonically pleasant environment by helping nature just a little bit. It subtly adds a sparkle to the sounds of the wind and the waves, which are already beautiful by themselves.