Tachyon Suspension
(Interactive sound installation, 2024)
- Sound installation concept and spatial design
- Musical/soundscape composition and production
- Organizing and conducting a qualitative research study on participants' experience
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This project was the basis for my final report for my Degree of Bachelor of Arts in Media, Aesthetics and Narration at the University of Skövde, Sweden. This interactive sound installation was installed at PlayLab, a high-tech stage/space in Skövde in which researchers, cultural workers and young people can explore games, technology and performance arts. More information about PlayLab can be found here and here.
My final report is called Exploration, cooperation and interpersonal communication in an interactive sound installation, and is unfortunately only available in Swedish at the moment. It's available to download from DiVA here.
The concept behind the installation is based on the previous project Phatic Tactility.​
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An interactive sound installation - an open work
Tachyon Suspension is an interactive sound installation, consisting of speakers and microphones. Participants can use the microphones to amplify the various low-volume sounds emanating from a set of small portable speakers. By playing around and experimenting with these objects, and combining speakers and microphones in different ways, the participants become co-creators of an ambient sound collage, an audio tapestry, collectively shaped and reshaped in real time. Any and all sounds going in to the microphones get amplified through larger loudspeakers surrounding the participants.
As the actual combining of audio elements is dependant on the participants' actions, the resulting sonic mixture will naturally be different each time. Tachyon Suspension is in this sense a form of open work, where a particular group of participants, with their particular sound mixing in that particular moment, collaborate to realize one unique iteration of the piece, out of a near infinite possible iterations.
Accessibility
One of the main concepts behind the design of the installation is accessibility. The simplicity of the installation's sound system facilitates usability without the need for prior experience playing instruments, knowledge of musical theory, or even advanced manual dexterity. This gives most people the opportunity to take active part in collaborative soundmaking, regardless of their previous level of musical experience. In a similar usability approach, the sounds coming from the small speakers have been composed without fundamental elements of classical and popular western music, such as rhythm and melodies, so as to remove any assumption that the sounding result needs to resemble traditional music, or notions that the activity requires musical training or keeping a beat or sticking to a certain key. Rather, the sonic result will be more akin to an experimental soundscape, encouraging a focus on the actual sounds and their textures and timbres, without necessarily any inherent musical "goal" or measure of "successfulness" (beyond the enjoyment of the participants!). This also reflects in the openness towards the realization of the piece - there's no right or wrong way to use the installation; the sound collage coming from the big surrounding loudspeakers is meant to be experienced, manipulated and negotiated by the participants at their own individual and collective volition, and however they please in the moment.
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Images on the right:
- A diagram of the physical set-up. 7 small wireless portable speakers and 3 microphones in the middle of the space, 4 larger surrounding loudspeakers.
- A diagram of the sound signal's route through the sound system. Each sound file is played on their respective electronic device (1), connected via bluetooth to their corresponding small speaker, which plays the sound file at a low volume (2), the participant can amplify the sound using a microphone, which is connected to a mixing console (3), the signals from all three microphones are mixed and played through the four larger surrounding loudspeakers (4).
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The sonic material
The number of sound files composed for Tachyon Suspension are 7 in total, one for each of the small speakers. The individual sound files are described below (although the piece as a whole is meant to be the experience itself, as well as the sonic mixture resulting from these sound files being manipulated and combined in real time by co-acting participants).
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Aviary
This sound file is made up of recordings of human whistling and other oral sounds, slightly tweaked to sound like various fictive species of birds. These bird sounds form a sparse and peaceful sound collage, reminiscent of the calming ambiance of nature.
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Words, In Order
This sound file consists of artificial human voices, created via text-to-speech synthesis. The voices are arranged in a cacophonous sound collage and they take turns, co-exist, and collide, as they read out various parts of a spoken word poem.
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Parsec Problem A & Parsec Problem B
These two sound files are the only ones with any sort of intended harmony. Separately, they each consist of ambient synthesizer drones forming two tones in an interval of a perfect fifth. However, combining the two files (for instance by putting microphones against both respective speakers at the same time) creates a lush major 7th chord.
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Strobe/Liquid
This sound file is made up of recordings of crackling and snapping sounds, generated mostly by manipulating and handling various materials and household objects, such as crumpled up plastics, a computer keyboard, a dripping faucet, and a contact microphone and its cord.
Clawing At Your Cornea To Be Let Inside
This sound file consists of recordings of metallic sounds; the scraping of dry ice against brass bells, the squeaking, squealing and vibrating of cymbals, the clattering and clanking of cutlery, etc. Some samples have also been processed to play backwards, creating a swelling counter-movement to some of the sounds.
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Distorture
This sound file consists of synthesized sounds, distorted percussion and bass synthesizers being transformed into short turbulent movements and contorted fragments of rhythm. These heavily processed sounds provide percussive elements, but without a steady pulse.
More info coming soon.