Site of Architectural Proposal

Silo @ Point St Charles District, Montreal, Canada

O NOIR Montreal

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.

Notational Drawings of Recordings

211 JAR Plan View

211 JAR Section View

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.

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 1 Recorded along the wire to the middle back window midway 2. You can hear a subtle high pithed ringing.

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.