Archivi categoria: Installationi

Cloud Sequencer

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A new work by Ronald van der Meijs.

Notes from the author:

This project is a first start for a new sound research project into the diversity of clouds, sun and wind in order to create a sort of ‘natural sequencer’ for an outside sound installation. This site specific instrument consists out of seven solar powered bass organ pipe units interacting on the brightness of the sun to control the loudness of the sound. In this way passing clouds form a natural sequencer for this installation. Each organ pipe unit is catching the wind with one of the 5 smal sails, controlled by a system of pulley wheels and counter weights for pitching the sound of each organ pipe by a moving valve.

The weather conditions of the island determine how the sounds and its composition evolves as a constant changing requiem for the West Vlieland village which disappeared into the North Sea in 1736. As for this village the installation is completely handed over to the unpredictability of the weather. This plays a major part in the concept of this sound installation; one has to accept the weather conditions in al its appearances. This means that it needs sun, clouds and wind to produce a variety of sounds. So if there is no sun at all there is no sound to produce. What is left in this situation is the sound of nature itself.

The work has been installed on the Dutch island of Vlieland (53°18’02.3″N – 5°05’12.0”E) from July 22th to aug 30th 2017

Author’s blog

Outings Project

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Outings is a global participative project, initiated by Julien de Casabianca, a French visual artist and filmmaker.

Anyone in their own town can go to their museums, take pictures of portraits with their phones and set them free.

It’s also museums, schools and cities organizing themselves with the inhabitants of their towns.

Eventually it’s exhibitions in museums and galleries of the photographs Julien de Casabianca took of his own Outings and shot all around the world.

outing01 outing02
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Osmo

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Osmo è un ambiente costituito da una grande sfera (9 metri) gonfiabile in materiale sintetico leggero. Al suo interno è illuminata da raggi laser che simulano le stelle allo scopo di creare un ambiente isolato dall’esterno, apparentemente enorme perché il materiale è una pellicola in parte riflettente.

Ideato da Loop.pH, un laboratorio sperimentale londinese che lavora nell’area del design, dell’architettura e delle scienze che peraltro ha fatto varie installazioni interessanti, come si può vedere qui.

 

Untitled by John Wynne

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john_wynne_untitledJohn Wynne – Untitled (2009)

300 speakers, Pianola, vacuum cleaner, audio amplifiers, hard disc recorder, speaker wire, suction hose, piano roll

Notes from author’s site

John Wynne’s untitled installation for 300 speakers, player piano and vacuum cleaner is at once monumental, minimal and immersive. It uses sound and sculptural assemblage to explore and define architectural space and to investigate the borders between sound and music.

The piece has three interwoven sonic elements: the ambient sound of the space in which it is installed, the notes played by the piano, and a computer-controlled soundtrack consisting of synthetic sounds and gently manipulated notes from the piano itself. Because none of these elements are synchronised with each other, the composition will never repeat.

The music punched into the paper roll is Franz Léhar’s 1909 operetta Gypsy Love, but the mechanism has been altered to play at a very slow tempo and the Pianola modified to play only the notes which most excite the resonant frequencies of the gallery space in which it is installed.

Sound moves through the space on trajectories programmed using a 32-channel sound controller, creating a kind of epic, abstract 3-D opera in slow motion. Originally developed at Beaconsfield Gallery, a former Victorian ‘ragged school’ in South London, this piece draws on notions of obsolescence and nostalgia, combining early 20th -century technology and culture with a vast collection of recently discarded hi-fi speakers.

These disparate components are brought together through contemporary digital technology which not only distributes the sound but also controls the (found) vacuum cleaner which in turn drives the Pianola. The piece is site-specific, but it also carries traces of its own history: some of the synthetic sounds were created in response to the light industrial ambience of the work’s original location, some in response to its new site in the Saatchi Gallery. The mountainous formation of speakers, inspired by the recycling plant from which they were rescued, functions both visually and as a platform for the projection of sound, creating, in the words of writer Brandon LaBelle, ‘a soft balance between order and chaos, organization and its rupture’.

Feedback Babies

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Un’altra installazione di Darsha Hewitt.

I Fisher-Price Nursery Monitor sono gli antenati (ca. 1983) degli odierni baby monitor con cui si può ascoltare il pargolo a distanza, anche via cellulare. L’ingombrante modello degli anni ’80 era costituito da un trasmettitore e da un ricevitore operanti su frequenze radio. Darsha Hewitt ha trovato un modo di riutilizzare questo dispositivo ormai obsoleto.

The Fisher-Price Nursery Monitor (circa 1983) was a low watt household radio set originally intended to “let parents be in two places at once” by broadcasting the cries of a baby in distress to a mobile receiver accompanying a parent outside of earshot. However, when in very close proximity these devices produce audible feedback that sounds uncannily like whimpering electronic babies. Feedback Babies is an electromechanical sound apparatus that makes use of slow moving motors to automate these transmitters in order to create nuanced feedback patterns.

Electrostatic Bell Choir

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electrostatic bell choirAn installation by Darsha Hewitt.

The Electrostatic Bell Choir is an electromechanical sound installation that plays with the static electricity emitted from discarded CRT television monitors. This static (that can be felt when one places their hand on the screen when the TV is turned on) is gleaned for its potential to generate subtle movement and is used as the driving kinetic force in the artwork. Sets of static bells consisting of ultra lightweight pith balls and bells from old grandfather clocks and rotary telephones are mounted in front of an assembly of twenty reclaimed Cathode Ray Tube television sets. A control circuit cycles the TVs on and off in alternating sequences which causes static to build up on the monitors. This static charge agitates the hanging pith balls, causing them to waver and lightly strike the bells ‐ resulting in quasi‐melodic compositions. The TVs are muted, tuned to various channels of white noise and physically spatialized in order to devise a dynamically layered soundscape textured with the signature high-frequency hums, pops and buzzes of the cathode ray tubes warming up. Although compositions are programmed into the piece, it inevitably takes on a character of its own as the static fluctuates and dissipates in response to ethereal nuances (i.e.: changes in air quality such as humidity). The glow of the screens and the subtle resonance of the bells magically punctuate the dark surroundings of the installation.

Electrostatic bells were invented in 1742 by Andrew Gordon, Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University at Erfurt, Germany. This is the first device known to convert electrical energy into mechanical energy (the moving of a bell clapper back and forth between two oppositely charged bells). It was popularly used at the time to predict oncoming thunderstorms by sensing static electricity in the air. The Electrostatic Bell Choir aims to focus the sensibility of this invention to a more personal scale where it demonstrates the intriguing effects of the invisible environment that constitute our domestic spaces. The artwork is at once mysterious yet can be tangibly deconstructed as the relationship between the static charges and the bells is observed as the TVs illuminate and catalyse the effect.

See also: Franklin bells and Oxford Electric Bell.

L’Illuminazione

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The Quiet Ensemble è un collettivo artistico formato da Fabio Di Salvo & Bernardo Vercelli.

the enlightenmentNella loro installazione The Enlightenment ogni lampada è dotata di un sensore che ne cattura il campo elettromagnetico. Il ronzio che si genera viene inviato al computer e poi all’impianto di amplificazione. Dalle note degli autori (di seguito), non è chiaro se il suono venga elaborato in qualche modo o semplicemente mixato e amplificato.

Un concerto in cui l’orchestra classica e gli strumenti vengono sostituiti da un set up elettrico. Al posto dei violini suonano i neon, a sostituire i tamburi sono le lampade stroboscopiche e al posto dell’arpa vediamo un faro teatrale che illumina il pubblico. Saranno quindi luci di ogni genere a sostituire gli strumenti musicali.

Ogni tipo di lampada ha un suono proprio, costituito dall’amplificazione della propria “ronza”, quel rumorìo di disturbo che solitamente viene eliminato durante concerti e spettacoli, generato dall’energia elettrica che alimenta ogni singolo faro.

Le frequenze che emettono le luci si sentono sotto pelle e variano in base alla dimensione ed al tipo d’illuminazione della lampada.

Per estrapolare il suono nascosto delle luci viene utilizzata una bobina di rame.

Ogni lampada ha un proprio sensore che ne percepisce il suono; quando la lampada irradia la luce, il sensore ne cattura il campo elettromagnetico presente intorno al flusso energetico e il rumore viene trasportato attraverso dei cavi microfonici al computer per poi uscire direttamente dall’impianto audio rivelando il “concerto invisibile”.

Veer

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Veer

Veer (2012), an installation by Adam Fure and Ashley Fure

Ashley Fure, Sound and Interaction Design
Adam Fure, Architectural Design

Batting, Custom Steel Branching System, Pressure Sensors, LEDs, Speakers, Computer, and Control Software

In Veer, created with architect Adam Fure, swaths of cotton batting wrap a branching steel structure to create a soft, interior sleeve for a room. Participants navigate tunnels and alcoves, activating speakers and LEDs embedded in the material walls as they move. Sensors disaggregate the musical form into gestural components, linked to locations, that elide into dramatic phrases through movement. Sonic, visual, and proprioceptive cues align into fused, synesthetic emphases. Gradations in color and ceiling height are mapped to acoustic shifts in register, spectral density, and gestural shape. High blanched walls project soft white noise while cramped regions thick with color screech out multiphonics. In Veer, space and matter are charged with an expressive force let loose through movement.

Veer is a multimedia installation that transforms space, sound, and light into variable dimensions of an experiential field. A base of polyester batting wraps a branching steel structure creating a soft, interior sleeve comprised of tunnel-like folds. Participants bend and push through saturated matter, pulling sound and light from sensors embedded in the material walls. In Veer, space provokes movement, movement provokes sound, and engaged participants instigate an emergent perceptual form.

Veer was funded and exhibited by Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany.

Veer, an installation by Adam Fure and Ashley Fure from SIFT on Vimeo.

320° Licht

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The ‘320° Licht’ installation of URBANSCREEN uses the cathedral-like beauty of the Gasometer as the starting point for a fascinating game with shapes and light.

Within a radius of 320 degrees graphic patterns grow and change on the 100-metre high inside wall of the Gasometer.

The observer experiences the interplay between real and virtual space, in which the Gasometer seems to dissolve into its own, filigree structures and yet finally always reverts to its clear shape. ’320° Licht’ has been achieved with kind project support from Epson Germany.

With approx 20,000 square meters of area played upon, the installation is among the world’s largest and technically most sophisticated interior projections – interconnecting 21 powerful projectors to one projection screen.

Duration (loop): approx. 22 min.

‘320° Licht’ is part of the exhibition ‘The Appearance of Beauty’ – the variety of beauty in art that is shown inside the Gasometer. The Gasometer Oberhausen opens this exhibition from 11th April until 30th December.

Please find detailed information here: Gasometer Oberhausen.

THX for providing REAL brillant services: Intermediate Engineering
Projection project partner: Epson Germany
3D Scan support: Leica Geosystems
Media-Engine mock-up: WINGS VIOSO

An URBANSCREEN.com production

Look on Vimeo