Bouncing off the Walls: Exploring architectural acoustics and the sculptural potential of sound and redundant technology

这个项目涉及伦敦市中心一家画廊Beaconsfield的研究驻场，该画廊致力于为创意探索提供一个关键空间，并以通过涉及古斯塔夫·梅茨格、鲍勃和罗伯塔·史密斯以及Leafcuter John等不同艺术家的项目进行创新工作而闻名。我被邀请开发一个新的场地特定的雕塑声音装置，在空间内工作6周，在此期间画廊将每周向公众开放2天。我不会安装一个预先设计的作品，而是会对空间的声学特征做出回应，特别是它的共振频率，它充当声音过滤器的方式，来自墙外的声音，以及它反过来塑造和反射内部产生的声音的方式。我不会把预先录制的声音带到空间中，而是根据空间的音景从头开始创造合成声音，并使用钢琴作为唯一的另一种声音来源。我将使用大约300个废弃但仍在使用的家用高保真扬声器(仍在增加)，这些扬声器就像钢琴一样，是多余的文化偶像，直接讲述了我们收听方式正在进行的演变。我还将使用一种名为AudioBox的灵活的高级声音扩散系统，使我能够创建一种身临其境的声音场景，在其中声音将以精确的、独立的轨迹在空间中传播。扬声器本身，不再局限于它们制造时的功能，将成为雕塑的积木。扬声器雕塑将延伸到角落和高达7米的天花板，声音将回到听众的耳朵里，经过这所以前破旧的贫困儿童学校非凡的声学过滤。其丰富的历史和非凡的建筑，再加上策展人在声音艺术方面的经验，使Beaconsfield成为这项研究的理想地点。装置中唯一的视觉元素将是产生声音所需的装置和设备(扩音器、扬声器、钢琴、一公里长的扬声器电缆)。雕塑的物质形式会影响声音，而声音又会反过来影响形式。扬声器的方位将影响听者对声音的体验，而扬声器所组成的物理结构将受到它们对声音及其空间化的特殊影响。随着作品的发展，雕塑过程和发声效果之间的联系将被揭示和开发。钢琴将不是以音乐的方式使用，而是在视觉上作为雕塑元素，并作为一种音调发生器来探索画廊空间的共鸣声学。我将与钢琴调谐器合作，将乐器调谐到空间的共振频率。无论钢琴附带的是什么音乐卷(eBay上总是有许多)都将进行修改，以便它只播放能激发高度混响的画廊空间的共鸣频率的音符。完成的作品将徘徊在声音和音乐的边缘，在缺席/多余的表演者的气场和被丢弃的演讲者的聚会上演奏，通过他们的设计，他们的使用和误用的标记，他们的所有者进行的修改，甚至他们中的一些人仍然从他们以前的位置携带的气味，在烟雾缭绕的酒吧，潮湿的车库，尘土飞扬的阁楼等。与扬声器和钢琴的冗余相比，这首作品中的声音安排将通过使用AudioBox实现，AudioBox是一个非常强大的，声音扩散技术，这将使我能够将声音传送到的频道，并通过数以百计的扬声器安排。我将重新配置这个系统，这个系统通常在主要戏剧作品中用于复杂的环绕声，以发展其体验式声音艺术的潜力。

This project involves a research residency at Beaconsfield, a central London gallery dedicated to providing 'a critical space for creative enquiry' and with a reputation for innovative work through programmes involving artists as diverse as Gustav Metzger, Bob and Roberta Smith and Leafcutter John. I have been invited to develop a new site-specific, sculptural sound installation, working within the space for 6 weeks, during which time the gallery will be open to the public 2 days per week. Rather than installing a preconceived work, I will respond to the acoustic characteristics of the space, specifically its resonant frequencies, the way it acts as an acoustic filter for sounds arriving from beyond its walls and the way it in turn shapes and reflects sounds produced within it. Rather than bring pre-recorded sounds into the space, I will create synthetic sounds from scratch in response to the soundscape of the space and use a pianola as the only other source of sound. I will use a (still growing) collection of approximately 300 discarded but working domestic hi-fi speakers which, like the pianola, are redundant cultural icons that speak directly of the ongoing evolution of the way we listen. I will also use a flexible high-level sound diffusion system called the AudioBox, allowing me to create an immersive soundscape in which sound will move through the space on precise, independent trajectories. The speakers themselves, no longer restricted to the function for which they were manufactured, will become sculptural building blocks. The speaker sculptures will reach into corners and up to the 7-metre high ceiling, and the sound will return to the listeners' ears filtered by the extraordinary acoustics of this former Ragged School for deprived children. Its rich history and remarkable architecture, combined with the experience of the curators with sound art make Beaconsfield the ideal location for this research.The only visual elements in the installation will be the devices and equipment required to produce sound (amplifiers, speakers, pianola, a kilometre of speaker cable). The physical forms of the sculpture will affect sound, and sound will, in turn influence the form. The orientation of the speakers will affect the listeners' experience of the sound, while the physical structures into which the speakers are constructed will be influenced by the particular effect they have on sound and its spatialisation. As the work-in-progress develops, connections between sculptural processes and sounding results will be revealed and exploited.The pianola will be used not in a musical way but visually as a sculptural element, and sonically as a kind of tone generator to probe the resonant acoustics of the gallery space. I will work with a piano tuner to tune the instrument to the resonant frequencies of the space. Whatever music roll that comes with the pianola (there are always many on eBay) will be modified so that it plays only the notes that excite the resonant frequencies of the highly reverberant gallery space. The finished piece will hover on the border of sound and music, playing on the aura of the absent/redundant performer and on the 'personalities' of the gatherings of discarded speakers, as projected through their design, their marks of use and misuse, the modifications carried out by their owners, and even the odours some of them still carry from their former locations in smoky pubs, damp garages, dusty lofts, etc.In contrast to the redundancy of the speakers and the pianola, the arrangement of sound in this piece will be made possible through the use of the AudioBox, an immensely powerful, sound diffusion technology which will allow me to move sound across up to 64 channels and through arrangements of hundreds of speakers. I will be reconfiguring the system, which is normally used for complex surround sound in major theatre productions, to develop its potential for experiemental sound art.