Brainstorming and Brainwashing

This week has been slow going in the design and development phase. The most difficult part has been trying to think of my design in terms of something that will be acoustically successful. This may be a bit obvious given the basis of the project is to create a sound producing instrument but I've found myself thinking more in terms of visual aesthetic and performative capability.

Initial ideas were to create something large scale so I could really physically interact and perform with it. Aside from a few smaller ideas, my main one I though about was revisiting an earlier side project where I controlled an animation on screen by tap dancing, wired up and programmed with a keyboard hack. I though about applying these same concepts through a large scale xylophone like structure, capable of supporting my weight. Where this would work as an acoustic instrument, I could also add a digital element by wiring up the different notes and the plates of the tap shoes, perhaps to somehow manipulate the sound.


From there, I began to link it more to a conceptual basis. and context. I have always been interesting in ideas around consumerism and thinking about this enabled me to start developing my ideas. The xylophones turned to cans with product labels on them, reminiscent of Andy Warhol's 100 Soup Cans which reflects this idea of mass production, consumption and availability of consumer products and brand awareness and marketing. After discussion with Phil, he suggested a way to use this same concept but helped me fill in the musical aspect of it. Instead of cans, it changed to Coca Cola Bottles which can be pressurized by inserting tyre valves into the caps to produce sound when hit. Similarly like, again, with Andy Warhol's Coca Cola Bottles, it presents the same idea but also in a product we are perhaps we can associate with more.

I felt additonally inspired by the exhibition and artist talk we went to last week which linked to my ideas and enabled me to develop them further. The work by SWAMP (Studies of Work Atmospheres and Mass Production) focuses around these ideas and in particular I was interested in the project Coke Is It which featured a robot programmed to search for puddles of Coca Cola on the floor which it would then suck up and spray over itself. The acidity of the Coke would eat through the umbrella above it and leak into the circuitry of the robot, causing it to short circuit and break down. Essentially it is an explicit commentary on "the routine destruction we do to our bodies" by consumption of the product which we know if bad for us, but continue to consume anyway, almost like we have been programmed to do so.

To translate the concept and acousitc element back into a visual and performative instrument. Researching further into the design and marketing of Coca Cola, I discovered that the unique design of the bottle is designed so that "a person will recognise as a Coca-Cola bottle even if he feels it in the dark. The Coca-Cola bottle should be shaped that, even if broken, one could tell at a glance what it was". Similarly the unique curve which has become integrated into it's marketing has also become iconic and instantaneously recognizable. From there, I was thinking about the nature of marketing and the methods companies go to to encourage brand awareness was not unlike brainwashing. To play on the curve and contour bottle, I am wanting to create a spiral which will hold the 5 different sized bottles and spin when hit to give the illusion that the bottles are suspended in midair while the spiral is spinning. This design came from the idea of garden wind chimes, shown in the image to the left.

I intend to make five of these spirals giving me 25 different sounds to use. The only thing now I am brainstorming is the best sort of support structure to build to suspend them from. On possible idea was a child's mobile-like structure to allude to the young age from which we are targeted, like how icons such as the Golden Arches of McDonald's for a young child become connotative of good experiences.

Mission now is to collect materials and experiment on a smaller scale to ensure it will produce the result I want before embarking on a larger scale.

Exploration

Part 2 of 2

On this note, we once again took to the streets of Auckland City in a 'Sound Walk', another way to add to our growing repertoire of ways to explore and experience the city. This time, we went on the same pathway though on our own, listening and recording the sounds we hear in terms of distance, volume, frequency and other similar aspects. There was no sort of set format in which we were meant to record it so I chose to do it in terms of a timeline / graph with different colours.

I have never extensively studied music so describing the nature of sounds it isn't some I have a lot of experience with. When encouraged to think of it compositionally, as though putting together a musical score with harmonies, gave me more to think about as I went along. Though most the recurring sounds were the same with only about five or six dominant sounds, what I found more interesting was in fact how they seemed to be composed. Thinking past just listening to what the sound itself was, the challenge was to listen to how it was and how it changed.

Like a musical score, I found interesting occurrences in the city sounds. Some noises followed patterns which seemed to repeat at more or less regular interval, such as the sin or cos graphs. The most dominant noise in the city is of course that of traffic but even that rose and fell, both in distance, volume and pitch. Then, other sounds seemed to reply in conversation with this, as the car noises died away, the more subtle noises such as peoples voices, footsteps and birds rose in apparent volume and distance, then dying as the cars dominated again, creating an inverse graph.

In terms of the journey itself, this can be expanded further depending on the location. Directly alongside the streets would be a strong introduction, softening as I entered Myers park where the streen noises were a faint accompaniment to the people's voices - imagined as though the vocal accompaniment - the wind in the trees, footsteps and other sounds occuring as the result of physical movement, the singing of the birds, and even the trickling of water into the drain. Exiting the park and up the steps which would gradually take me back to the bustling streets of K' Rd, the music of the cars would once again intensify and dominate, yet with a gradual transition between the two.

In contrast to this activity, the next day's project instead took us to the architecture department where we were sealed inside a Anechoic Chamber to experience the absense of sound. We found that with all noises from outside the room completely sealed off, we were able to focus completely on our internal noises, such as the high pitched squeal of the nervous system, and the low pitched thud of the heart. Noises inside the room as people moved, breathed and spoke were experienced in a completely different way as the accoustics of the room were designed so that sounds didn't reflect of the foam walls. When the lights were turned out, the mind was completely disoriented with no reference points with which to place sound and even a cough from across the room sounded like it was in your ear.

By developing a greater understanding of how we experience and register sound, we will be able to take this into the context in which we create our sonic objects. I felt these activities were helpful as they helped me think about sound in new ways by removing some of the filters we apply automatically in everyday life. I will use these to inform my research and develop my initial ideas and concepts.

Back to basics

Part 1 of 2

Given the task of creating an instrument from a cardboard box, I saw everyone approach it hands on and just go for it, armed with scissors, glue, knives and whatever else they could get their hands on. In my usual methodical approach, I had to sit down and think about it for a while and jot down some ideas. I think everyone else had the right idea, especially when the project was compared to that given to pre-schoolers and in that sense, I thought about how pre-schoolers would feel less inhibited, allowing them to fully unleash their creativity and see what comes out. Perhaps this is the approach required if I am to experiment with more risk taking.

As it was, I found myself sitting surrounded by an assortment of film canisters, metal and plastic strings, metal hooks, balloons and, of course, glue and scissors. Taking the basic anatomy of an instrument, the cardboard box acts as the amplifier or resonating chamber. Beyond this, I found myself fairly uninspired at first.

After brainstorming various methods of creating the various features which make an instrument, I decided to take the more hands on approach and learn by doing, and just explored the potential of the shapes and textures made possible with the film canisters. I also experimented with some metal wire which had been a spiral binding for a note pad and experimented with the pitch given when uncoiled to different lengths, and with some plastic wire stretched out with metal hooks and a styrofoam bridge, I used film canisters as movable bridges. This resulted in varying degrees of success in terms of sound, the most successful of which was the metal wire.

I found it hard to work with the cardboard box as I found it hard to present something that wasn't visually refined; every time I looked at it, it was to me still just a kettle box with film canisters stuck to it. It was important to try remember that this was still purely experimental and not meant to be a refined final product. Essentially, it was where were all at anyway and like with my experiences, we were all at varying degrees of success.

Through presentation we discovered that we had all experimented with not just the potential, but the limitations of the cardboard as a material. Some had established that their designs would work better with a more rigid material such as wood, but others found that the limitations gave it a new shape or other unexpected result which they wouldn't have thought of but gave an overall successful outcome. This reinforces the experimental approach as the best results can be unplanned, then taken to be refined.

To add another aspect to our instruments, we constructed contact microphones simply by soldering wires onto the required plates and plugs which were provided. The purpose of adding these was to pick up sounds and vibrations we might not be able to hear other wise, enhance and otherwise alter and projects the sounds in a different way. I didn't use the potential of the cardboard box too well as an amplifier, so it didn't work too well acoustically but the microphone amplified the sounds and gave more of a distinct tonal variation between the different sized film canisters which was distinguishable acoustically. What I would be able to improve on is to experiment with different tool with which to play it to give more interesting variety of sounds.

Overall what we got out of this activity is an initial understanding and basis for what is and isn't successful for creating sound from our own experiences and each others' presentations. From here, I believe this will serve as a basis to develop on and experiment with for the sonic objects which we will design, build and perform. I feel I've definitely learnt from it as music and sound isn't an area I've extensively studied in the past so this next brief will be a challenge but I am looking forward to the performance aspect.

Preemptive reflection: Semester 2

Following a briefing on what semester 2 has in store, we were also given some pointer based on last semesters' projects and presentations as to what had to be improved overall. They were points we'd briefly highlighted before but it was good to be refreshed and go more in depth. The challenge this semester is o extend our ideas with more thoroughly developed and thought out concepts by linking to context which will help us approach our ideas with more confidence, which will then lead to taking more risks to achieve an overall more interesting outcome.

In some of my more final reflective blog entries from last semester, I had recognized this (having been pointed out by James then as well) and once again I relate it back to the process I followed in my art making last year, particularly in art design. Where, given a brief, we came up with our initial ideas and context, generated a range of concepts, chose one or two to develop and refine, go back and evaluate, then go back and do it again, developing on to achieve a more refined product from seeing what works and what doesn;t work.

Following our introduction to our new theory paper, Maths and Art, when presented with a complex sentence and situation to deconstruct, analyse and think about, I feel it provided a good sort of note to start on by encouraging that sort of critical thinking, looking for further ideas.

I feel I need to keep these ideas and skills in mind during the semester to extend on what I achieved in semester 1.Though they were processes I was already familiar with, I think I instesad chose to focus too much the introcudtion of the new context of a higher and different level of study, not thinking to incorporate these skills I already had. Now more familiar with the process of the studio projects, I can integrate the two.

The other big challenge I think everyone struggles to overcome is that of time constraints and that can only be overcome with careful planning, motivation and the right mindset, or, like me, not trying to do everything. I need to work on pacing myself in terms of what is possible within the given time frame. Having also only done only one group project so far, I know that where I prefer working on my own, it is vital I learn to work in a group as well.

Overall am looking forward to the upcoming projects and papers and after a long holiday, am ready to get back into it.