Seven octaves, 84 discrete tones, all at once all the time, a history of western music as played back in its entirety as one incessant chord. This drone, this filler of space and monster of the twelve-tone scale, is unrelenting in its ever pervasiveness. As a pneumatic sound engine, the Omnisound Generator allows for remote placement into the machine via air coupled headphones. Monitoring the insides with stethoscopic precision, hear its heartbeat, its scream, its infrasonic rumblings and the wind rushing by. ALL SOUND ENGINES ARE GO!

[2] The Live Room - Transducing Resonant Architecture

“The Live Room is a temporary site specific installation, distributed across the exhibition space, in which machines fuse into architecture combining forces of action into form, structure and space. In this project, small acoustic intensifying devices are used which are mounted to the structure of the building, engaging the architecture and running impulsive energy throughout. The system is designed to produce sound and vibration in direct relation to the building and the dimensions of the space.

The Live Room utilizes seismic induction equipment to activate the interior (or exterior) surfaces of the site and create a large scale “tectonic charging” by means of vibration. By using a variety of transducing devices and signal generation equipment, Bain can effectively “tune in” a space by delivering its resonant frequency to its different parts.

Normally we think of sound as waves of energy traveling through a medium (such as air) on its way to the ear. Because the molecules are more spread out, gasses like air are in fact less efficient mediums for sound to travel than liquids or solids. Therefore the solids which make up most architectural forms can be thought of as very efficient conductors of vibro-acoustic energy. Though these electro-mechanical devices don”t actually produce their own sound, the energy they impart changes the surfaces into what, in essence, are an infinitely large acoustic radiators or speakers. By using multiple transducers, the room can be driven with energy which is derived in response to the shape and material makeup of the room.

Buildings, human bodies and all other materials, have their own particular resonant frequency. If this frequency, also known as the value of efficient excitation, is accurately located, it is possible through mechanical means to literally “ring” the material, like striking a bell. If this “ringing” is reinforced through a feedback system, it is possible to produce a phase aligned addition to this wave form where potentials are present for the material oscillate out of control. In 1898 the inventor Nikola Tesla was working with similar energy imparting devices which was said to be so small “you could put it in your overcoat pocket.”

“I was experimenting with vibrations. I had one of my machines going and I wanted to see if I could get it in tune with the vibration of the building. I put it up notch after notch. There was a peculiar cracking sound.

I asked my assistants where did the sound come from. They did not know. I put the machine up a few more notches. There was a louder cracking sound. I knew I was approaching the vibration of the steel building. I pushed the machine a little higher.

Suddenly all the heavy machinery in the place was flying around. I grabbed a hammer and broke the machine. The building would have been about our ears in another few minutes. Outside in the street there was pandemonium. The police and ambulances arrived. I told my assistants to say nothing. We told the police it must have been an earthquake. That”s all they ever knew about it.” (Nikola Tesla, 1935)

This notorious event was said to have also produced a similarly intense sympathetic vibration two blocks away from Tesla”s laboratory.

Mark Bain’s notion of “transient architecture” describes a system of infection where action modulates form and where stability disintegrates. The Live Room project seeks to intensify these sites with hybrid-machines, fusing architecture with dynamic systems. This act of “site charging” is intended to create resonating spaces which are normally thought of as static. This action is an attempt towards the liberation of tectonics from typical inertial limits; where resonant structures vibrate in sympathy to induced frequencies. With this work, Bain suggests a model for transducing architecture, i.e. defining the space with external influences of a vibro-kinetic nature.

The Live Room in addition generates infrasonic sound, i.e. sounds at frequencies below the threshold of hearing which still affect the body and perception in ways which can seem unpredictable. There is a subtle strangeness to this project which revolves around the production and injection of these unique low frequencies. When the body comes in contact with infrasound and vibration, unique phenomena develop. Parts of the body can be excited through differing frequencies allowing the spaces within to be felt. Certain feelings and tendencies can also be elicited, whether it is nausea, headache, the gag reflex, or the urge to defecate. These physical responses have induction components which relate to certain cycle rates. In the Live Room, a common occurrence related to the vibration is the effect on the vestibular system and the sense of orientation and balance. When positioned on active floor panels a feeling of shifting horizon may be felt. While standing, balance can be altered and suddenly your perception is that of surfing the architectural plane.

The Live Room constructs a topological space composed of virtual objects which haptically interface with the audience. By interacting with the cycling wave forms the visitor is occupied, infested with frequencies, modulated by vibrational energy and imparted with the volumetric sensibilities inherent within the body. The audience are the activated objects, traversing the site and feeling the liveliness of themselves, others and the space within.” From The Art of the Accident by Arjen Mulder.

Mark Bain works on the interface of acoustics, architecture and actions of conceptual / experiential integration. For some time Bain has been involved in an ongoing research into the area of sound and architecture and how sonic events condition bodies and buildings they occupy. Sculptural aspects of sound are also investigated in the way resonant materials can define structures in space. Other installations involve living systems and investigative devices, which position the viewer into rarified experiences. In this work, he designs hybrid apparatuses, which engage both locations and the viewing public. These are not necessarily products in themselves, but rather tools developed which lead to certain ends. His research can be thought as a kind of divining, a loosening, or search for living entities, defining a presence within that which is normally thought of as static and dead.

“ABSTRACT: We present Zstretch, a textile music controller that supports expressive haptic interactions. The musical controller takes advantage of the fabric’s topological constraints to enable proportional control of musical parameters.

Typical interactions with fabric involve (a) grasping and pulling, (b) scrunching and (c) twisting

This novel interface explores ways in which one might treat music as a sheet of cloth. This paper proposes an approach to engage simple technologies for supporting ordinary hand interactions. We show that this combination of basic technology with general tactile movements can result in an expressive musical interface.” Chang, A. and Ishii, H. Zstretch: A stretchy fabric controller. Presented at NIME [PDF] [via Architectradure]

Touch consists of an inter-disciplinary team involved in social and cultural inquiry, interaction/industrial design, rapid prototyping, software, testing and exhibitions.

RFID and NFC: RFID is currently regarded as the replacement for barcodes in logistics and supply chain management. It is also becoming widely used for contactless ticketing, credit cards, animal tracking and e-passports. But a new set of applications and services are opening up as NFC (a new standard based on RFID) is integrated into mobile phones. Commercial applications for NFC are predicted to include ticketing, payments and service discovery, where these things can be achieved with a simple ‘touch’ of the mobile device.

But Touch is not just about incremental innovations to existing infrastructures; the technology offers many unexplored opportunities. The simple integration of tags into everyday things and places, the low-cost of NFC components and the adaptiveness of the NFC specifications are all examples of the ways in which this technology promises to be ubiquitous. These opportunities suggest that many other applications and services will be built around the technology, and that ‘touch’ may well become part of everyday life in unexpected ways.

Touch interactions: NFC and ‘contactless’ systems are intended to be easy to use for everyday transactions, the interaction is carried out with a simple ‘touch’, ‘swipe’ or ‘tap’. By using these simple actions, NFC puts a sense of human control back into otherwise complex and unwieldy ubiquitous systems. Touch is a natural, expressive gesture and can be used to create satisfying interactions. There is a rich history of industrial design, ergonomic and human factors research that can be used in the design of these systems.

Touch-interactions are significant culturally and socially; our sense of touch is a large part of the way we understand and affect the world. Touch carries meaning and this changes according to context, situation and culture. The project explores these contexts through social, cultural and ethnographic research. This cross-disciplinary research will be used as a resource for further design and prototyping.

The project will run until 2009. It is funded by the Norwegian Research Council.

Tou can contact them at:
hello at nearfield dot org

The amoeba shaped board has little boxes in its center that when moved to the arms, activate different sounds. My interest in music and design merged to create a haptic interface (based on touch) that allows people to use gesture to mix sounds with their hands. My inspiration for this robotic installation came from going to parties and seeing DJs create the music on their tables, but no one knowing what they do to make the sounds. Generating music using gesture allows for a much more expressive way of creation. [blogged by Nicolas on pasta and vinegar]