Another artist from the experimental atelier made a drawing to represent the sound environment of a particular area (unknown to me) and I interpreted it in sound. The result is bellow.

I have since been told that the original space, upon which the auditory sketch was based, was an abandoned building near a power station and near train tracks. Unfortunately I don’t have a scan of the sketch at the moment but hopefully I can update this post later.

I translated the sketch into audio by reading into a microphone my impressions of the drawing. I then took samples of my own voice and altered them digitally until they seemed to me to be close enough to the sounds and sensations I was trying to get at with my verbal descriptions. For example, I took a recording of me saying “four bells, four bells, four bells, four bells” and boosted certain frequencies, limited others, and further manipulated it until it began to sound like four bells. Other instances were less literal.

I made some audio. It’s available to stream and download on SoundCloud (or above).

In January I showed a second, improved version of my translation of a poem into sounds and smells.

This time the environment was more fitting, some of the visual elements of the installation were improved upon or added to, and the mechanism of the machine was made more accurate and automatic through the addition of a braking system*. I got some very positive feedback from my mentors and classmates. Even the librarians were excited to have my work in situ.

*The brakes use a touch sensor to stop the turntable motor, in combination with an electromagnet to open and close a gate at the appropriate time. This way one can stop the turntable spinning at intervals of 1 sixth each time. It’s a rather amateurish or indirect solution to the requirement, but that’s in the spirit of the original poem — the playful spirit of finding your own interest and excitement in something you’re not equipped to understand yet, the spirit of looking in on a world that’s not your own and finding wonder/beauty through or despite your ignorance.

So I’m off to a good start in the experimental studio. Time for a new undertaking.

See my previous posts about this project.

I’ve been working on a translation of a poem into sounds and smells. The sounds and smells are released in synchrony by a machine (made with help from my engineer friend Brecht) that selects scented beakers using the turntable of an old record player.

You can download an excerpt from the audio track here, smells not included. This one is the translation of the second stanza, which begins “fondants, fudge, caramels, taffy brittles”, and lasts one and a half minutes. The whole piece is approximately eleven minutes long.

I may improve upon the audio, smells and machine over the next weeks. This is a sort of work-in-progress or, I suppose, the continued evolution in my mind of the original text.

As I recall, I made it after discovering that one of the samples on my keyboard sounded like the tones of an airport announcement bell.

I made this noise song about stereotypes, featuring the voice of MIT lecturer Jeremy Wolfe (as found on an itunes lecture series on psychology).

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/101146

It’s my intention to make a video with the track. It doesn’t really stand up on its own.

Here’s my track. Do endure past the squeaky trombone part. There’s more to it.