Category: Materials and matter

Anna Mlasowsky – Glass and Sound

Anna Mlasowsky is a German-born glass artist who works across many media including video, installation, and performance. As the description below for the project “Resonance” attests, her work with sound emerges from her own challenges with hearing perception. …Continue Reading Anna Mlasowsky – Glass and Sound

Bohyun Yoon – Glass, Sound, Interaction

Bohyun Yoon is from Korea and currently living in Richmond Virginia. He is an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. Inspired by the idea of sound from clear glass, he choreographed avenues for this glass to become a sonic instrument. His residency at Harvestworks included the use different materials like multi channel audio, contact microphones and amplifiers. His recent projects include Glass Helmet (2004), Glass Tube (2012), and Glassorganism (2013). …Continue Reading Bohyun Yoon – Glass, Sound, Interaction

Christoph Cox – Dematerialization

Very nice meditative lecture on the idea of the ephemeral in art by Christoph Cox. There is a strong sonic emphasis here, but also on other forces like wind, fire, electromagnetic energy, etc. He begins with an intro but the actual performative lecture begins around 8:11. The names of all of the artists and writers that he uses in the lecture are included at the end….Continue Reading Christoph Cox – Dematerialization

Doug Aitken – Sonic Pavillion

The idea behind Sonic Pavilion (2009) was this: boring of a 200-meter-deep well in the ground in order to install a set of microphones to capture the sound of the earth. By way of a sophisticated system of equalization and amplification, this sound is played in real time inside the empty circular pavilion, which was designed to create equivalence between the audio experience and one’s relation to the surrounding space….Continue Reading Doug Aitken – Sonic Pavillion

Fabricmachine – sound and textiles

Another instance of taking the physical or visual properties of a material and converting them to sound. FABRIC MACHINE Installation and performative Instrument: Two fabric loops, driven by a motor, create a division in space. Light sensors measure the opacity of the textile; The way all pieces are sewed together for a fabric sound track…Continue Reading Fabricmachine – sound and textiles

Soundweaving: Artist Converts Folk Embroidery Patterns into Paper Scores for Music Boxes

Soundweaving is a recent project by Hungarian design student Zsanett Szirmay that turns patterns used in traditional folk embroidery into music by translating them into laser-cut punch cards fed through a custom music box. The project was partially inspired by actual paper cards used in some weaving looms to easily reproduce patterns for various textiles….Continue Reading Soundweaving: Artist Converts Folk Embroidery Patterns into Paper Scores for Music Boxes

Scientists Use Sound Waves To Levitate And Manipulate Matter

A team of researchers in Switzerland have developed a way of levitating and transporting small objects using nothing but sound. Using ultrasonic waves that is, sound waves whose frequencies are too high for humans to hear, scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich have made water droplets, instant coffee crystals, styrofoam flakes,…Continue Reading Scientists Use Sound Waves To Levitate And Manipulate Matter

Tactile Transducers

Also known as Surface Transducers and other things… https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10975 “Surface transducers give you the awesome power to turn almost any surface into a speaker. They’re essentially just a speaker except instead of a cone, the coil is attached to a pad that conducts the vibration into whatever you press it against. Hook it up to…Continue Reading Tactile Transducers

Sway – Caitlin Morris

Sway is a space where sound and physical form meet. The environment reflects the palpable experience of listening to music, in which many small parts work together to create a larger whole. When visitors become immersed in the mass of translucent reeds that form the geometry of the room, the sound composition reacts at the…Continue Reading Sway – Caitlin Morris

Textilen & The Electric Ribbon

Sound and Garments from Parsons Faculty Jeannine Han. A 2-year project involving the development of textile-­based modules and inter­faces for the con­trol and syn­the­sis of music during per­for­mance. A tex­tile in­stru­ment pro­vides a na­tur­al link be­tween action and sound, en­abl­ing al­ter­na­tive comp­o­si­tions and im­prov­isa­tions im­possible with tradi­tional in­stru­ments….Continue Reading Textilen & The Electric Ribbon

Piezos and Soldering

A piezoelectric disc can be used to either generate sound by running electric current through it can, or when contacting a surface, translate the vibrations of that surface into sound. Piezoelectricity describes the naturally occurring electric charge found in certain geologic materials. This property was first discovered in crystals in 1880 by Pierre Currie, who…Continue Reading Piezos and Soldering

Nicolas Collins – Handmade Electronic Music

Nicolas Collins is a very prolific artist and beyond his many accomplishments which you can get a taste of in this Wikipedia entry: Nicolas Collins was “a pioneer in the use of microcomputers in live performance, and has made extensive use of ‘home-made’ electronic circuitry, radio, found sound material, and transformed musical instruments.”[3] He has…Continue Reading Nicolas Collins – Handmade Electronic Music

Stalactite Organ

The Great Stalacpipe Organ is an electrically actuated lithophone located in Luray Caverns, Virginia, USA. It is operated by a custom console that produces the tapping of ancient stalactites of varying sizes with solenoid-actuated rubber mallets in order to produce tones. The instrument’s name was derived from the resemblance of the selected thirty-seven naturally formed…Continue Reading Stalactite Organ

Anechoic – By Show Studio

Anechoic is a ‘collections story’ that uses sound instead of visuals to interpret the essence of key garments from the Autumn/Winter 2006 collections by leading fashion brands. Part of a series of projects devoted to exploring ‘The Sound of Clothes’, these interactives and fashion films explore sound ‘generated’ by the garments themselves. http://showstudio.com/project/the_sound_of_clothes_anechoic/fashion_films    …Continue Reading Anechoic – By Show Studio

Annea Lockwood – Glass Music

“The Glass Concert” given periodically between 1968 and 1973 (76 times, to be exact), Annea Lockwood’s 1973 LP The Glass World is the composer’s most recognized work. The original performances took place in the dark, with most of the sounds being produced offstage and amplified into the concert space. On-stage antics included “curtains of fine glass tubing; trees of bottles inverted in a spiral pattern; a mobile of large panes of wired glass, surrounded by mirrors.” …Continue Reading Annea Lockwood – Glass Music