To see Final Portfolio Submission please see link to the right.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Further Phenomenological Exploration
Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? by Blesser and Salter
"We shape our buildings, and afterward our buildings shape us." - Winston Churchill, 1943
p.1 "Architecture, which has been called the "mother of all arts," is concerned with the design, arrangement, and manipulation of the physical properties of a space. Unlike other art forms, architecture provides spaces for the daily activities of life; when more the simply utilitarian, it also appeals to our aesthetic sensibilities. By choosing and combining materials, colors and shapes, architects embed their respective artistic messages in structures that we see, hear, and feel. Like poets with their specialized language, architects communicate their worldview with a vocabulary of spatial elements that often contain symbolic meaning reflecting their culture."
p. 2 "The composite of numerous surfaces, objects, and geometries in a complicated environment creates an aural architecture. As we hear how sounds from multiple sources interact with the various spatial elements, we assign an identifiable personality to the aural architecture, in much the same way we interpret an echo as the aural personality of a wall. ... In addition to providing acoustic cues that can be interpreted as objects and surfaces, aural architecture can also influence our moods and associations. Although we may not be consciously aware that aural architecture is itself a sensory stimulus, we react to it."
p. 3 "Aural architecture, with its own beauty, aesthetic, and symbolism, parallels visual architecture. Visual and aural meanings often align and reinforce each other. ... Since listening with understanding depends on culture, rather than on biology of hearing, auditory spatial awareness must be considered the province of sensory anthropology. To evaluate aural architecture in its cultural context, we must ascertain how acoustic attributes are perceived: by whim, under what conditions, for what purposes, and with what meanings. Understanding aural architecture requires an acceptance of the cultural relativism for all sensory experiences."
p. 4 "Aural architecture refers to the properties of a space that can be experienced by listening. An aural architect, acting as both an artist and social engineer, is therefore someone who selects specific aural attribute of a space based on what is desirable in a particular cultural framework. ... In describing the aural attributes of a space, an aural architect uses a language, sometimes ambiguous, derived from the values, concepts, symbols, and vocabulary of a particular culture. ... Because of differences in their perspectives, acoustic architects focus n the way that the space changes the physical properties of sound waves (spatial acoustics), whereas the aural architect focus on the way that listeners experience the space (cultural acoustics)."
p. 5 "Even though aural architecture shares the same intellectual foundation, its language and literature are sparse, fragmented, and embryonic. ... There are four principle reasons why this might be so. First, aural experiences of space are fleeting, and we lack the means for storing their cultural and intellectual legacy in museums, journals, and archives. Second, for both cultural and biological reasons, the language for describing sound is weak and inadequate. Third, being fundamentally oriented toward visual communications, modern culture has little appreication for the emotional importance of hearing, and thus attaches little value to the art of aufditory spatial awareness. And fourth, questions about aural architecture are not generally recognized as a legitimate domain for intellectual inquiry; professional schools provide little or no training in physical acoustics, aural aesthetics, or sensory sociology."
"Architecture begins where engineering ends." - Walter Gropius
"Architecture is to make us know and remember who we are." - Geoffrey Jellicoe, 1989
p. 362 "In contrast with preliterate societies, however, our modern technological society tends to devalue hearing, smell, taste, and touch, preferring sight as the principle means for sensing the environment. Traditionally, we therefore both create and experience architecture visually, rather than with all our senses. ... As modern humans living an familiar spaces with omnipresent illumination, most of us can see little use in having auditory spatial awareness. But should the lights fail, the need to navigate or orient in a space by listening will remind us of how useful it is to sense space without vision. Similarly, we sometimes "feel" someone approaching from behind even when that someone is silent. ... As a culture, we can create social and architectural opportunities to encourage our fellow citizens, especially our children, to acquire spatial awareness. When many of us attend that have a complex and socially desirable aural architecture. In turn, a rich aural architecture is more likely to stimulate development of that auditory spatial awareness.
Sound and Structural Vibration: Radiation, Transmission and Response - Frank Fahy
p. 27 "Natural Frequencies and Modes of Vibration. Although all of these wave phenomena may occur in solid structures, the one having most practical importance is reflection. The reason for its importance is that it is responsible for the existence of sets of frequencies, and associated spatial patterns of vibration, which are proper to a bounded system. An infinitely long beam can vibrate freely only at particular natural or characteristic frequencies. The elements of the beams which are not at boundaries satisfy the same equation of motion in both cases; they clearly only "know about" the boundaries because of the phenomenon of wave propagation and reflection. Wave reflection at boundaries also leads to the vary important phenomenon of resonance. Note carefully that resonance is a phenomenon associated with forced vibration, generated by some input, whereas natural frequencies are phenomena of free vibration. Resonance is of great practical importance because it involves large amplitude response to excitation, and can lead to structural failure, system malfunction, and other undesirable consequences."
p. 217 Acoustically Induced Vibration of Structures
"Any solid structure exposed to a sound field in a contiguous fluid medium will respond to some degree to the fluctuating pressures acting at the interface between the two media. It is common experience that heavy road traffic can produce visually observable low-frequency displacements in window panes of houses adjacent to a highway; heavy rock devotees love the body vibrations induced by the very high powered loudspeaker systems used by performing groups.
The process of transmission of airborne sound energy through partitions involved vibrational response to sound pressures acting on one side, together with the consequent radiation of sound from the other side. This process, generally involves extremely small transverse displacement amplitudes of the partitions, which therefore do not constitute a threat to the integrity of the structures. There are, however, cases of considerable practical significance in which acoustically induced vibrations levels are of such a magnitude as to require the engineer to assess the likely effects on the structural and operational integrity of the system concerned. Acoustically induced fatigue failure first came to prominence in the 1950s owing to the high levels of jet noise to which aircraft structures were exposed; in the 1960s aerospace engineers became concerned with the high levels of vibration induced in spacecraft structures and on-board equipment packages due to rocket noise at launch; and acoustically induced fatigue failure of nuclear reactor and industrial plant components came to light at about the same time.
Other examples of acoustically induced vibration of practical significance include the degradation of receiving sonar array performance by the response if the surrounding hull structure to the incoming sound field; low-frequency, airborne sound-induced vibration of complete building structures by sources such as large reciprocating compressors; vibration of the tank tops (engine support structures) of ships by airborne noise radiated by the underside of the engines; and the process of absorption of sound by structures in buildings, such as lightweight ceilings, glazing, and panelling. The mechanisms of structural vibration caused by explosive blasts and by sonic booms are qualitatively similar, but these airborne disturbances differ from those considered in this book because they are finite amplitude and are therefore non-linear in nature. "
P. 241 Acoustic Coupling between Structures and Enclosed Volumes of Fluid
"The most significant difference between the acoustic behavior of fluid contained within physical boundaries and that of unconstrained fluid is the existence in the former of natural modes of vibration and associated natural frequencies; these are called acoustic modes. As in solid structures, acoustic modes arise fro interference between intersecting wave, and the natural frequencies are associated with the correspondence between the spatial characteristics of the interference pattern and the geometry of the physical boundaries of the fluid volume. An enclosed fluid exhibits resonant acoustic behavior, the effects of which are to produce a strongly frequency-dependent response to vibration by contiguous structures, together with fluid-loading effects that also exhibit strong dependence upon frequency. Practical examples of interest include machinery noise control enclosures, double-leaf partitions, vehicle cabin spaces, tympanic and bodied musical instruments, loudspeaker enclosures, and fluid transport ducts. The skin drum is an example of a system in which solid-fluid interaction is fundamental to its vibrational behavior."
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Abstract - Intention
For the second part of the project the emmeteur I will be examining the material consequences of wire and the phenomenological implications of vibration and resonance. Acoustically all sound is vibration, architecturally all buildings move causing material disturbances thereby resulting in material vibration and resonance. Based on my previous explorations in capturing acoustical vibrations by means of an Aeolian harp and piezo microphones I have discovered that acoustic vibration is a subtle ornamentation of space that is both temporal and spatial. The question is what is the place of ornamentation in the design of architecture? I will be researching the scientific, the cultural and the artistic implications of this question.
The scientific exploration will look specifically at material resonance and vibration, both structurally and musically, as a dynamic condition in a building that creates a material disturbance. This includes a polyformal system, where sound is an orientator, a way of ‘seeing,’ an extension of the body (the body as all ears, or as part of the disturbance). I will be looking specifically at haptic material understanding of wire, in the manner of Karilee Fuglem, understanding tensile structures and polytopes, such as used by Iannis Xenakis, and understanding material resonances, as used by Harry Bertoia. The vibrating condition of the tensile structure acts like a stringed instrument.
The cultural implications relate to the retraining of the body. In today’s North American culture we have lost the ability to listen, hear and perceive sound. As a society we are obsessed with reducing and eliminating sounds from our daily lives, and as such we have inadvertently reduced our capability to listen, hear and perceive sounds, while quite consciously and continuously privileging the visual realm. The material vibration in a building creates an event potential that has serious public implications. Sound is a powerful means of transmitting information, sound as informative. Vibrations can be felt while being unseen and unheard, thereby providing a structural potential of vibration through vibroacoustics. Vibroacoustics also play a significant role in health management, specifically in individuals with cerebral palsy, in terms of pain relief and alleviation from spasticity and psychological benefits. Perhaps this has greater socio-cultural implications as a source of stress relief/management in today’s high-stress culture.
The artistic implication will stem from the sonic ornamentation of the space. “There is something so fundamental about sound, that is evades you as you approach it.” In this case it is exposed to articulate the phenomenon of the sound of the vibration. Sound is something on the edge of existence, subtle. Through the haptic artistic act, the tensile structure, like a network or web of wires, will operate like a layer over that space. The web therefore becomes parasitic and autopoetic operating on its own terms. The vibration of structure around you, allows the sound to reveal itself. Sound ties a person to a room through the interconnectivity between the person and the space, allowing an experiential dialogue that allows us to experience ourselves in the sound of the space. The subtleness of the experience, its ‘barely-thereness’ heightens our acoustical awareness, becoming almost meditative. The whole body becomes covered in ears (R. Murray Schaefer), awakening every cell to listen.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Phenomenological Detailed Research
Phenomenological Research
Case Study Designs in Music Therapy
p.189 “Vibroacoustic therapy studies purported to alleviate many different symptoms, physical problems and psychological disorders, an the field was open to abuse and could even be accused of having a ‘cure all’ profile.”
“…the value of vibroacoustic therapy is that it influences both psychological and physiological activity. While it is undoubtedly an enjoyable form of treatment, with very few side effects reported so far, one has to accept that the placebo effect can be very influential. Where music itself is considered a ‘placebo’ on VA therapy (given that pulsed sinusoidal low frequency tones are the primary stimulus of treatment), it is important to establish both the influence and effect of the treatment of vibroacostic therapy when compared with music on its own or no intervention.”
“…the results of the trials considering the small sample groups involved, particularly in the clinical studies on high muscle-tone. However, the value of considering the evidence from a series of studies, [sic] is the process by which one can integrate information collected independently and better formulate a theory of treatment. These studies have shown us that arousal levels are clearly influenced and reduced, and physical effects do include reduced muscle activity and slower heart rate. The applicability of that will not simply be confined to populations of clients with cerebral palsy, in particular severe spasticity, they can also be applied to other populations for whom anxiety, high arousal levels and stress provoke problems in daily living and somatic health.
Pamphlet Architecture – Architecture as a Translation of Music
p.16 “Let’s say, simply for a point of departure, that there exists a definable membrane through which meaning can move when translating from one discipline to another. …[A] membrane is a thin pliable layer that connects two things and is, in this case, the middle position of music + architecture. …A semi-tone is a transitional sound heard during articulation linking two phonemically contiguos sounds, like the y sound often heard between the i and the e of quiet. A y-condition, in the middle position of music + architecture when translating one to another. Louis Kahn once described great architecture as that which starts with the immeasurable, proceeds through the measurable, and returns to the immeasurable.”
p.30 “Le Cylindre Sonore” Bernhard Leitner
“The combined effect is the acoustically delineation of space and the physical massing of sound. Sound is no longer exclusively the instrument of musical expression; designed with precision, it becomes a building material in the creation of space. Sound’s ability to merge with other sounds and its lack of borders represents a phenomenal equivalent to the artistic concepts of interpretation, nonobjective, and nonobstruction. Active processes that se sound’s invisibility and temporality interpret sound as having a characteristic of nonbeing. By enclosing a moment, Le Cylindre Sonore creates a field in which acoustical experience may occur, “kompositionsprozesse” (Arthur Schnabel) ‘it is not the aural effect that is prescribed, but the process that generates it.’ In this instance, product and process are the same; there is no longer a question of the reproduction of an experience – each visit to the cylinder produces the work for the first time.
p.46 “Sonic Space of the Long-Stringed Instrument” Ellen Fullman
“Inside an old candy factory in Austin, black draped walls optically recede, creating the illusion of endless space. One hundred and twenty long strings suspended at waist height define the horizon line. Illuminated from above, the highlights seem to float infinitely in space before dissolving in the void. The Long-Stringed Instrument, a spatial and temporal exploration. Created and refined as a collaboration with engineers and instrument builders experimenting with wire, resonator boxes, and tuning systems. Physically vast, the strings span eighty-five feet. A performer must enter the installation and move among the wires to make music. Stepping back one becomes a viewer, seeing others players slowly glide through space, in relationship to other performers traveling. Loud sonic textures fill the room; inside the instrument, you are inside the sound. The music expresses the properties of longitudinally vibrating elongated strings. As the performer’s position within the strings continually changes, so do the proportionate lengths created by pressed fingers dampening the strings. The constantly changing lengths produce cascading secondary pitches – the overtones. Overtones result from the fact that a body vibrates in section as well as along its total length. B focusing on the overtones while slowly walking and rubbing fingers on the wires, the performer experiences the order of nature through the physics of sound Vibrations, the physical manifestation of sound, move through the body. The shifting of one’s attentions between the fundamental pitches and the always changing overtones induces a hyper-meditative state, altering one’s perception of time. The intellectual space of harmonic intervals is planar.”
p.64 “Computation and Composition”
“We stand at the dawn of an era that will see the emancipation of architecture from matter. The intuition that allows us to even consider architecture as “frozen music” or music as “molten architecture” comes from a deep and ancient understanding that, in its very essence, architecture exceeds building, as music exceeds sound.”
Frie Otto – Tensile Structures
“The oldest examples of tensile structures are tents and suspension bridges. Today they are supplemented by the tensile supporting surfaces for roof constructions made of nets and membranes or of tractive three-dimensional rope configurations, and tower and suspended-housing structures.”
Frei Otto Form und Konstruktion Phillip Drew
p.34 Munich Olympia Park. Good images of wires and joints. Grid system, octagonal, square, triangular, hexagonal. Steel trusses used as support posts for peaks.”
p.42 Seating overhangs – look like the Provencher Bridge
p.44-5 Wire structures/models playing with forms, metal screen, larger spaces
p.54-61, 64, 72, 87,
Material and Phenomenological Research
There are several sources which I am currently looking at regarding material and phenomenological research. The material research is based on wire and the transmission of sound or creation of sound by agitating the wire. Phenomenologically I am looking at the nature of vibration and how to author and sonically generate sound through vibration. I am interested in understanding the nature of vibration and oscillation through the ventilation system as my point of origin and transferring to tensile wires of my recordings in 211 JAR in order to understand how to manifest the the sound architecturally.
Artists:
Material and Form - Harry Bertoia
Karilee Fuglem - a Montreal based artist who works with thin wire to create these disappearing masses.
Iannis Xenakis - a 20th century Greek musician, architect, engineer who created massive multimedia performances called polytopes.
Phenomenological & Scientific Research:
The Soundscape - by R. Murray Schaefer
Pamphlet Architecture 16: Architecture as a Translation of Music - by Elizabeth Martin
Spaces speak, Are You Listening? Experiencing Aural Architecture - by Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter
Case Study Designs in Music Therapy - ed. David Aldridge
Sound and structural Vibration: Radiation, Transmission and Response - by Frank Fahy
Infrasound and Low Frequency Vibration - ed. W. Tempest
Exploring Music: The Science and Technology of Tones and Tunes - by Charles Taylor
An Adventure in Multidimensional Space: The Art and Geometry of Polygons, Polyhedra, and Polytopes - by Koji Miyazaki
Visual Art, Mathematics and Computers - selections from the Journal Leonardo
Frei Otto Tensile Structures
Octaphonic Mixdown
University of Manitoba Architecture Students from Patrick Harrop's studio at the Black Box at Concordia University. The Black Box consists of eight speakers and a Motu for sound editing and manipulation. The only sound manipulation I did was in terms of the volume of the sound emitting from each speaker to give my compilation a sound spatialization.
My Octaphonic Mixdown Compilation consists of four of the previous eight edited recordings.
Using Ableton Live I composed my recordings in relation to the eight speakers. The speakers were set up in a circle around the room, so speaker 1 is at the 12 o'clock position and speaker 2 follows in a clockwise manner. The four recordings I selected were as follows:
Track 4 - Emitting out of all the speakers at the same time, giving a sense of being surrounded by the sound. This is the first track heard. It sets the mood and the tone for the compilation, forcing the listener to acclimatize to the subtleness of the recording.
Track 7 - Oscillates between speaker 7 and speaker 3 such that it seems that the sound is passing through the listener, back and forth.
Track 6 - Begins at speaker 6 and slowly increases in volume to reach a maximum peak in the middle of the room then starts to dissipate in volume out of speaker 2. So it seems to appear in corner of the room and then move diagonally across the room
Track 2 - This track remains at speaker 2 oscillating in volume but remains at speaker 2. The oscillation eventually coincides with the other tracks but then quickly becomes out of sync and gives a sound perspective to the composition.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Edited Sound Recordings
While in Montreal we worked at Concordia University, in their Black Box, a specific sound room with a Motu and eight wonderful speakers. The following are the specific edited recordings I have chosen to work with for my octaphonic presentation. The selection of recordings were chosen for their delicate and subtle sounds.
For my recordings I had made aeolian harps that were attached to the ventilation system in room 211 of JAR. Each wire radiated out towards the outer walls and windows of the room. The recordings were made using pieso microphones that I built. I started recording each wire by clipping the microphones onto the wires close to the wall and then moving along the wire towards the ventilation system.
The following are the eight specific tracks I have selected to work with for my octaphonic presentation. For me there is a performative sense to the sounds recorded. My goal is to provide some sort of spatialization of foreground and background. To give a spatial perspective to the room.
To hear recording just click on the track.
Track 2 Recorded along the wire to the back left window midway. There is a low vibration and a high ringing.
Track 3 Recorded along the wire to the back left window moving in from the window. To some people it sounds like a sitar.
Track 4 Recorded along the wire to the back left window close to the vent. There is the occasional ringing and a sort of tapping.
Track 5 Recorded along the wire to the back left window moving in 2. Again there is a low vibration and a high ringing, but different from track 2.
Track 6 Recorded along the wire to the middle back window midway 2. There is again a high ringing sound emitted.
Track 7 Recorded along the wire to the middle back window close to the window.
Track 8 Recorder along the back left window. There is a thumping and a plucking noise recorded.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Recording Methods
Step 1 Beginning with the phenomenon of vibration I gathered as many recordings as possible of various vibrating conditions within the site, 211 JAR. My initial recordings were not amplified enough to distinguish any sounds. This image shows how I was trying to amplify and capture the vibration emanating from the wall. I could feel the vibration when I leaned my head against the wall and could hear the vibration but could not seem to capture the sound on a recording. To capture my recordings I created my own piezo disk microphones that I clip on to the object and it picks up the vibrations of whatever it is attached to.
Step 2 Field Recordings Next I set up a aeolian harp that ran radiates out from the ventilation system to various points in the room
The aeolian harp, also know as a wind harp amplifies airborne objects. So in this case it amplifies the sound passing along the wire, like in the game "telephone," therefore operating like a stringed instrument. The ventilation system transfers vibrations along the wire causing the wire to vibrate.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The Capteur
Project 1 Immaterial Ontological
This part of the project, the "capteur" is looking at ways to record and document the immaterial phenomenon of either light or sound or both that relates architecturally. I was looking for a dynamic temporal condition that has to do with the interface of a building. The interface relates to a threshold condition, between two rooms for example, a window between the indoor/outdoor and trying to document the condition of vibration of that interface.
I have chosen a site in the John A. Russell building, in room 211. I like to sit at the back of the class, and I noticed that during one of my classes when you rest your head against the back wall you could feel the vibrations of what I thought was the ventilation systems kicking in occasionally. The problem for me was how to record that condition aurally over a period of time. There is sound and therefore there is some kind of diffraction, but it is so subtle that in order to capture that sound I would have to augment or magnify the sound some how.
Vibration is an architecturally considered sound. There is material resonance throughout a building, for example windows vibrating, or wind rushing through the ventilation system. The recording must incorporate the following:
1. The Dynamic - something which changes or is cyclical. A public space that is complex temporally
2. Polytemporal & polyrhythmic - where several things going on
3. A place that has some significance of human interaction of human interaction
4. Polyscaler - looking at all scales microscopic to architectural scale
In order to record the sounds I needed to find some sort of modulation, for they are almost imperceivable, to make vibration audible. The recordings are to pick up what is actually going on. The technique will require some sort of interface to pick up on the recording. The threshold condition is a material condition, and that is what will be recorded, therefore maintaining an architectural discussion. I will be using an H2 Handy Recorder to record analogue sounds electronically.
Monday, September 28, 2009
capteur || emmeteur:
"There is nothing else but sound, all that exists in vibration."
- Zbiniew Karlowski
Studio brief:
"There is a longstanding understanding that interactivity is both passive and poly temporal in nature. This is unlike the contemporary work that we are just beginning to explore in the modulation of the built environment through electronic art."
"The first phase of the term will deal with practice of sensing and recording of temporal and immaterial phenomenon through the membrane of an environment."
Immaterial study of an environment to reveal the evidence of modulation.
More research:
TUNED CITY berlin
Sounds like Architecture - lecture by Rahma Khazam was presented at Tuned City an architecture and sound festival held in July 2008 in Berlin. They examine architectural projects in which sound plays a dominant role ranging from applied acoustic or musical notions to the design of buildings, to collaborations between the two.
An American artists Mark Bain examines the sound potential of buildings by augmenting inaudible sounds. He talks of the connective tissue between structures and the audience that contributes to the sum of vibrations.
Two other artists Randy Yau and Scott Arfed talk about hearing with your body. They are looking at new ways of perceiving and experiencing with one's own body to achieve an acoustic sense of space.
The interesting thing about TUNED CITY is that of observing sound to measure the capacity of architecture, a phenomenon of resonance or sympathetic vibration where all things are working in one continuum.
An interesting sound art exhibit is the Frequency Test ST20 - SOUND at the Bass Museum of Art
Hilary Pfeifier creates art through adjusting the frequency and watching the vibrations that cause the salt/sugar molecules to bounce around and form patterns on a metal surface.
Arthur Ganson creates these funky art installations that seem to run themselves. Here is one called "Wishbone"
http://www.arthurganson.com/pages/Sculptures.html
Friday, September 18, 2009
Further investigation...
I found this great site on sound installations which list numerous books, articles and links about sound, architecture, and electronics.
In one of the books recommended by this site I found DE-ARCHITECTURE by James Wines.
One of the opening quotes is by Louis Kahn:
"When a building is being built, there is an impatience to bring it into being. Not a blade of grass can grow near this activity. Look at the building after it is built. Each part that was built with so much anxiety and joy and willingness to proceed tries to say when you're using the building, "Let me tell you about how I was made." Nobody is listening because the building is now satisfying need. The desire in its making is not evident. A time passes, when it is a ruin, the spirit of its making comes back. It welcomes the foliage that entwines and conceals. Everyone who passes can hear the story it wants to tell about its making. It is no longer in servitude; the spirit is back.
-Louis Kahn, Conversations with Architects
Patrick Harrop my studio critic pointed me in the direction of Maxime Rioux and his fascinating vibrating artworks.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Preliminary Research
Things I looked at to get going...
Initially I started with this elementary lecture on electromagnetism at MIT.
Then I investigated the more philosophical implications of Heidegger and architecture.
Heidegger and Virtual Reality: The Implications of Heidegger's Thinking for Computer Representations
As well as several other articles including:
"Thick Time: Architecture and the Traces of Time" by Jeremy Till
"Architects Since Birth: A Creation Myth Borrowed from the Phenomenology of Music" by Stephen Parcell
"The Thought of Limits" about the inside outside, thresholds and boundaries
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