Sound Research

"We've all experienced it, whether we think of ourselves as olfactory aficionados or not: flashbacks and recollections triggered by perfume. Scent can literally manipulate emotions by sending signals to our hippocampus, the part of the brain that guards the pathways to the different elements that make up a memory. These memories intertwine with smells, conjuring up the past like a visceral film reel."

"Close your eyes and think about the last time you were at a gig. How did it sound? The band is rocking out on stage, your friends are talking in a group over to your left, a busboy says "excuse me" as he slides past your right shoulder, and the din of the crowd is all around. Sounds like a club, right? The aim of 3D, or "spatial", audio is to replicate these complete sonic environments-or to synthesize completely new ones. "

"artist anne patterson has synesthesia, meaning that her sensory perceptions overlap; when she hears sound, she sees color. trained as an architect and theater production designer, this unique combination of senses has led to an artistic practice hovering somewhere between the theatrical and experiential. she continues to explore synesthetic environments with 'pathless woods', a colorful installation that began with her acclaimed 2013 project 'graced with light' at grace cathedral in san francisco."

"Meet the "motion microscope," a video-processing tool that plays up tiny changes in motion and color impossible to see with the naked eye. Video researcher Michael Rubinstein plays us clip after jaw-dropping clip showing how this tech can track an individual's pulse and heartbeat simply from a piece of footage. Watch him re-create a conversation by amplifying the movements from sound waves bouncing off a bag of chips. The wow-inspiring and sinister applications of this tech you have to see to believe."

"Stonehenge is a ruin. Whatever sound it originally had 3,000 years ago has been lost but now, using technology created for video games and architects, Dr Rupert Till of the University of Huddersfield has - with the help of some ancient instruments - created a virtual sound tour of Stonehenge as it would have sounded with all the stones in place."

"At this point, I should mention what I have neglected to say. Top Secret uses an algorithmic Bluetooth device that tracks your coordinates in the museum, sending you further information and instructions based on your location. This also means that when the voice in your headphone asks you a question, you can respond by moving in certain ways or relocating to specific areas in the galleries. For example, you may be asked to answer a question by walking to the other end of a gallery or waving your notebook (which Top Secret provides you with in the air above your head. "

"Oceans are a sonic symphony. Sound is essential to the survival and prosperity of marine life. But man-made ocean noise is threatening this fragile world. Sonic Sea is about protecting life in our waters from the destructive effects of oceanic noise pollution."

"The ear has 20,000-30,000 hair cells, the nerve endings responsible for carrying the electrical impulses through the auditory nerve to the brain. These delicate receptors bend or flatten as sounds enter the ear, typically springing back to normal in a few hours, or overnight. But over time, loud sounds can cause more permanent damage as hair cells lose their resilience. Frequent and intense exposure to noise will cause these receptors to flatten down, stiffen, and eventually break. The damage can interfere with the ability to determine the location of a sound, cause extreme sensitivity and pain, and make it impossible to discern language with background noise. One in 20 Americans, or 48 million people, report some degree of hearing impairment. RELATED STORY What My Hearing Aid Taught Me About the Future of Wearables "

"The first sound ever was the sound of the Big Bang. And, surprisingly, it doesn't really sound all that bang-like. John Cramer, a researcher at the University of Washington, has created two different renditions of what the big bang might have sounded like based on data from two different satellites."

"Crack-k-squutch! A zombie's head explodes in a loud, disgusting gush of decaying brain matter, and the audience gleefully recoils. When it comes to Hollywood, in an era of digital special effects and computer-generated monsters, one of the last provinces of traditional analog elements is Foley art: the sounds that are added to movie scenes to give extra vividness to a head thwack, a creaking chair, or just the ever-present sounds of walking. These sounds are still created using physical props-and very often, those props come from the kitchen."

A distributed hybrid digital/analog musical messaging system that activates an acoustic geography.

"Here's an excerpt from a recent talk by sound artist Olivia Block in which she exposes her approach to sound in relation to architecture, specifically in her recent Sonambient Pavilion, where she explored some interesting topics around sounds, materials, shapes, textures, layers, spaces, etc."

"The Museum of Portable Sound is a portable museum dedicated to portable sound, currently based in London, UK. The Museum's galleries exist as digital files located on the Museum Director's mobile phone - due to copyright concerns, we are unable to distribute all of our objects online. Displays of our permanent collection are augmented with an ongoing series of rotating exhibits in our Exposition Space."

"Sound maps are boring. Why? I would argue it's because they've become stuck in a rut that began when the idea of 'sound map' became synonymous with online, Google API-based or other forms of point-and-click, CD-ROM era interface design. If we want sound maps to become less boring, this needs to stop. But how do we as sound artists (or would-be 'sound cartographers') break free of the point-and-click model? "

"For the past five decades, in a Guatemala City studio, 85-year-old sound artist Joaquín Orellana has been building unusual, sculptural útiles sonoros, or "sound utensils." Some look like marimbas curved into miniature roller coasters; others look like sets of wind chimes designed by Alexander Calder."

"On the sensations of tone' brings together three artists where sound, listening, the ear of the listener and the composer are essential elements in their work. This approach evokes the theories of Hermann Ludwig von Helmholtz (1821-1894) in his seminal work 'The physiological theory of music based on the study of auditory sensations', published in 1865 in Germany."

"A sound art installation exploring the infamous Latin 'Lorem Ipsum' text, used in publishing and editorial contexts, which allows focusing only on the visual and graphical aspects of the product. If the human ear can be compared to a radio receiver that is able to decode electromagnetic waves and recode them as sound, the human voice may be compared to the radio transmitter in being able to translate sound into electromagnetic waves.  The characteristic role of language with respect to thought is not to create a material phonic means for expressing ideas, but to serve as a link between thought and sound."

"IDEA: A large group exhibition in Berlin as a climax of a three-year residency and exchange project between Mexican and German sound art artists. WHAT:  'entre límites / zwischen grenzen - berlin' focuses on different aspects of the relationship between sounds and objects. The majority of the pieces at the exhibition were created over the course of several weeks during project residencies in Mexico and Berlin. The exhibition was already shown with great success earlier this year in Mexico City from late August to the end of October."

"As ASMR videos have sped across the internet, artists have started making their own versions, inducing shivers with soft sounds like clacking, cracking, scratching, and whispering."

"Matthew Rubery discusses the Optophone as part of the 'How We Read: A Sensory History of Books for Blind People' exhibition. For more information see: http://www.howweread.co.uk."