Sound Research

Field research, critical analysis & sonic artifacts: A research environment at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

"How do human beings experience sonic environments under historically and culturally changing circumstances - and what are the epistemological implications of such a turn to an experiential hearing perspective in the wider field of sensory studies? "

"This extraordinarily inventive duo has a way of making music all their own. At the heart of their duo is a self-designed, cutting-edge digital cueing system which operates as a sometimes visible third member. Both prodding and reactive, the Shackle system suggests musical directions and textures to these two highly gifted performers, opening up a fascinating array of sonic choices for La Berge and van Heumen to play with and against. "

"Four years after the invention of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell caused flurries of excitement with another invention, which he described in a series of essays and lectures in the US and Britain during the autumn of 1880. The device was what he called the 'photophone'. It depended upon the discovery made by Willoughby Smith in 1873, during the course of work on the Atlantic undersea telephone cable, that the resistance of the material selenium, which was ordinarily extremely high, in fact varied with the action of light, exposure to light lowering the resistance of the material."

Kathryn Walter is a Canadian artist who maintains a studio practice that intersects visual art, design and material culture. She operates the FELT studio as a laboratory to explore modern industrial felt through exhibitions, historical research, architectural commissions and a product line. Influenced by her background in sculpture, Walter has created a body of work ranging from intimate artworks to large-scale installations. She has collaborated with architects and created felt walls for residential, institutional and commercial sites including Google (Montreal), Red Bull (Toronto), The Museum of Tolerance (Los Angeles); and CUNY Law School and The New School (New York). Walter has shown her work in exhibitions at the Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto) and the Cooper Hewitt Nation Design Museum (New York). She received a BFA from Emily Carr College of Art and Design (Vancouver) and an MFA from Concordia University (Montreal). She lives and works in Toronto. www.feltstudio.com

"Blind Date is a project by the Belgian art-education organization Aifoon. Visitors are given a helmet equipped with headphones, a directional microphone and goggles blocking all visible impulses. Wearing these helmets we were guided through the city by Aifoon's Jeroen van de Sande. "

"A turntable that rotates in time with the earth, one revolution every 24 hours, playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons. If performed from beginning to end, the record would play for four years. The movement is so slow it isn't visible to the naked eye, yet the player is turning, imperceptibly."

"Sound recordings from three glaciers in Iceland, pressed into three records, cast, and frozen with the meltwater from each of these glaciers, and played on three turntables until they completely melt. The records were played once and now exist as three digital films. The turntables begin playing together, and for the first ten minutes as the needles trace their way around, the sounds from each glacier merge in and out with the sounds the ice itself creates. The needle catches on the last loop, and the records play for nearly two hours, until completely melted."

"This 1940s old as dirt med school classic video describes how humans hear sound and how the human ear works. The video covers the anatomy and physiology of the ear and discusses the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear. Other topics include the eardrum (tympanic membrane), hammer (malleus), anvil (incus), stirrup (stapes), organ of corti, and the cochlea. Included in the video is a labeled diagram showing the parts of the human ear. This is excellent information for managers who have workers exposed to high levels of noise that could potentially damage hearing."

"Creative Time presents Playing the Building, a 9,000-square-foot, interactive, site-specific installation by renowned artist David Byrne. The artist transforms the interior of the landmark Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan into a massive sound sculpture that all visitors are invited to sit and "play." The project consists of a retrofitted antique organ, placed in the center of the building's cavernous second-floor gallery, that controls a series of devices attached to its structural features-metal beams, plumbing, electrical conduits, and heating and water pipes. These machines vibrate, strike, and blow across the building's elements, triggering unique harmonics and producing finely tuned sounds. "

Acoustic location is the art and science of using sound to determine the distance and direction of something. Location can be done actively or passively, and can take place in gases (such as the atmosphere), liquids (such as water), and in solids (such as in the earth). "

"A UK mathematician has made a public appeal for people to phone a dedicated number so data can be gathered to hone a tool that can diagnose Parkinson's disease by analyzing voice patterns."

Field Studies is a four-day summer-school led by three acclaimed sound artists and composers. It explores the possibilities of engaging with places through listening, and working with recorded sound as a creative and practical tool in the context of architecture, the city and art practice.

"Two Japanese researchers recently introduced a prototype for a device they call a SpeechJammer that can literally "jam" someone's voice - effectively stopping them from talking. Now they've released a video of the device in action."

"While we all can appreciate getting some peace and quiet every now and then, you might be surprised to learn that there's only so much of it the brain can take."

"WALL OF TIME is very proud to have secured as our second interviewee one of the few eminent experts in the field, the trained architect, carpenter, musician and writer OLAF SCHÄFER."

"Luke Jerram's Sky Orchestra project "explores how one can perceive an artistic experience" whilst sleeping."

"If you want to register a song at GEMA (RIAA, ASCAP of Germany) you have to fill in a form for each sample you use, even the tiniest bit. On 12 Sept 08, German Avantgarde musician Johannes Kreidler registered - as a live performance event - a short musical work that contains 70,200 quotations with GEMA using 70,200 forms."

'Sonic Journalism' is the aural equivalent of photojournalism. It describes the practice where field recordings play a major role in the discussion and documentation of places, issues and events and where listening to sounds of all kinds strongly informs the approach to research and following narratives whilst on location."

Page by Peter Elsea (UCLA ELECTRONIC MUSIC STUDIOS) "The notion of sound is rather remarkable. Something happens there and we know it here, even if we are looking the other way, not paying attention, or even asleep. The fact that some sounds can produce physical and emotional effects is just short of astounding. These notes will perhaps remove some of the mystery associated with sound and hearing, but probably none of the wonder. "