This week I created a collage to explore the visual connections in my current work and explore visual links between different aspects of my investigation.
Collage Workshop
After looking further into the Aby Warburg documentary that we were set to watch in preparation for this session, we were tasked with constructing our own collage, exploring the ideas and images of our projects through a wholly visual interrogation.
I would in my mind, prefer to communicate the connections that emerged from this excercise in a written list, but I feel this might undermine the contribution to knowledge that the image provides and so I will here instead show the poster, un-subtitled.
Here are some other noted thoughts and quotes that are not displayed in the poster above.
-"Everything we live through is metamorphosis' - associations with Kafka and the haunting nature of change, especially within oneself. - A sound that we make ourselves perhaps as this haunting experience. [link to Otoacoustic Emission]
-The British library as being an internal structure, therefore not having windows, in contrast the Warburg institute has a window covering every area of the wall, appearing from the outside as one of his collages.
First composed sample
Using a recording of the radiator that unexpectedly haunted a tutorial, as I have mentioned in a previous blog post, I composed the first of hopefully many sounds that I hope to play through the speaker system, once I have constructed it.
For this and all future compositions, I compose in mono, as I do not currently plan to have a second speaker device and if I did then it would also be composed in mono as the sound focussed to a beam will have its own unique spatial quality.
I have, with this composition, experimented using a granular synthesis engine, here I have automated some of its features such as density, taps, voices and delay, with an aim not to completely distort the sound in to an incomprehensible mess of tones, but to slowly evolve the sound in a haunting way in which the original sound can still be heard.
INFRASOUND
My practice has so far considered the benefits of using ultrasound to create haunting experiences in the gallery space. However, in my curiosity I decided to research into infrasound this week, as being sounds at a frequency at which is too low to be registered by human ears. (The threshold cutting off at 20 Hz).
(Infrasound arrays at infrasound monitoring station in Qaannaaq, Greenland.) These are used to monitor whether a nuclear explosion has occurred, but can also sense strong storms, etc.
The Haunt Project - This curiosity led me to a research article titled 'The Haunt Project', which attempted in 2007 to recreate an artificial environment inspired by accounts of ESP (extra sensory perception). This artificial environment or 'haunted room' involved manipulating complex electromagnetic fields and utilising infrasound.
Haunting Nature - Infra sound makes you feel physically uncomfortable, despite its absence from your sensory perception. - This presence and absence dichotomy plays into the hauntological model.
If played at a high enough volume, infrasound can affect the cochlea of our inner ear and cause a slight dizziness. This is perceived as an acousmatic haunting sound experience, too low frequency to be associated with a proximal source. Instead, listeners navigate through an almost extrasensory perception of moving towards and away objects to feel more and less uncomfortable.
Whales - the frequency threshold reminded me of something I read about this time last year, which is that of the 52 Hz whale. A male whale named for its notably low song, which despite his efforts to attract other whales, is at such a frequency that it warns other whales away from that area. For this reason, the creature is named the loneliest animal alive. In this same way, perhaps utilising infrasound can create a feeling of discomfort within a space that would prefer to be alone.
Just as the whale is himself haunted by his attempt to connect with others, the disembodiment of the gallery means people feel haunted by their own bodies - that odd piece of furniture.
Creation - I have experimented producing tones of these frequencies - 19Hz and 20Hz so as not to damage my speaker equipment.
My studio monitors were able to recreate the sound, but perhaps not well enough as the feeling of discomfort was not present.
My studio headphones were not able to produce the 19Hz sound either, however at 20Hz a haunting experience was created for me. This proves that it would work theoretically, but only through high quality headphones, whereas ideally I would want to project the sound into a space.
This can be achieved however with specialised speaker equipment, designed specifically for deep bass sounds. These types of speakers are called 'Subwoofers'. I will try and find access to using these speakers for this purpose hopefully through the university,
Otoacoustic Emission
Inspired by the quote previously about everything being metamorphosis echoes Hauntology's model of time, but as applied to the self, where we as humans are constantly evolving and redefining ourselves as we move through the temporal dimension, I decided to look into the sounds that we make as a reflection of this.
The act of looking into a mirror to see the colours in your own eyes is at once an uncanny yet familiar experience, it feels almost haunting to see a reflected image of that by which we see images. Despite its strangeness, and our uncanny relationship with our own reflection,( as being not how we are seen, but an inverse image of how we are seen) it is an incredibly normalised and therefore familiar experience because of our ocularcentric culture. However, in the same way as we see our eyes in a mirror or video, we can hear our ears through a process called Otoacoustic Emission, While me might not think our ears make sound to be heard, Otoacoustic recordings are made by fitting a microphone into the ear canal and recording the motion of the cochlea's sensory hair cells as they energetically respond to auditory stimulations. Therefore we can hear ourselves hearing.
This would link to Lucier's famous work 'I am sitting in a room' sonic work.
This also links to the use of the ultrasonic transducer as its intended or most frequent purpose is to function as a tool to send a wave that is then received in sensory technologies.
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