This week I created two more compositions, found a near Infrasound subwoofer I could use for my exhibition, spent a lot of time trying to make the parametric speaker work and reflected on my ideas for the exhibition in the MAP space.
Frequency Chart:
While researching about using various frequencies of sound I decided it would be helpful to have a graph of reference and so I made one as a page on my research Journal.
More Compositions:
For this composition I used a 52 Hz Bass drone. This is a tone that is very low but still within human perception and can be heard on most hifi speakers without needing a specialised subwoofer.
The tone of 52 Hz was chosen specifically for its association with what has been coined 'the loneliest animal on the planet', the 52 Hz Whale. Whales are commonly known to use calls to communicate long distances, this specific whale's 'whale-song' so different from other whale sounds that its uncanniness deters other whales from coming near, sending out a long distance warning to all whales not to come near, despite the whale using the sound to look for a mate. the tone therefore has an association with isolation and loneliness. On top, I have layered granular whale song to show the difference the tone has to other sounds of whales and creating a spectral soundscape.
The association with whales, gives an opportunity to explore sound as moving, at the end of the composition the drone becomes unfamiliar and it is arranged such that it sounds like it is approaching.
For this composition, I used a 21 Hz Bass drone which is one of the fear tones associated with dealing with fear in the brain. It is automated to slowly get louder over time. This tone can only be heard using a subwoofer. The sound starts with ambient conversational noise which becomes slightly uncanny as time progresses, through a process of granular delays
Superimposed over the conversational sounds is white noise which I created and modulated to sound like wind. White noise is often used in sound cancellation technologies and is associated with calmness and isolation. White noise is the sonic equivalent of white light: where white light is created by combining all colours, white noise is the product of combining notes of all frequencies. This has a powerful association with the white light of the white cube as it used to remove the 'background' sounds of context in favour of isolation. Despite white noise's application to noise cancellation technologies it is not unheard, in the similar way to how the white cube's attempt at neutrality does not make it invisible. White noise is still noise, and though it is used as a container for isolated sound experience, when amplified it has an uncanny similarity to a human scream.
The modulations to make it sound like wind were randomised and smoothed to make it sound natural, however it is curious that the white noise modulated in this way did make it sound like wind. This is a revelation that emerged from practice. It helped to communicate the narrative I wanted to express in this sound composition. The sound starts with the social ambient sounds of a city - the outside context of most white cube galleries. Then slowly the outside is silenced and drowned out by the white noise, until eventually it is as if time stands still and the sound of the wind blows at a constant frequency and the chatter is silenced completely. Eventually, the drone of this frozen point in time becomes overwhelming - reflecting the shift of container to content in the white cube's aesthetics and the white noise's amplitude.
The white noise's amplitude increases by a greater speed as time progresses - this is done by automating the volume by a curve. This increase felt a much more natural and haunting choice than for it to increase linearly.
Preparing for Exhibition.
The sounds I have made so far are around two minutes each to explore the ideas of each sound, but can easily be made longer. They can all be played through studio monitors and a subwoofer.
I have now sourced a subwoofer that I have been using to compose with, however the parametric speaker is proving much harder to build than anticipated though I have solved a lot of problems with it and spent a lot of time trying to make it work. As it stands, the sound works can be played through speakers, and a haunting feeling can be gathered from them.
The subwoofer speaker's almost infrasound frequencies are incredibly surreal, especially when played in a closed room. It affects the deepest part of the self and makes the room and floor vibrate, drawing attention to the whole space.
Ideally the parametric speakers could add to this effect and create the feeling of sound haunting within the space in a way that compliments the infrasonic experience, however this may not be done soon. I have been in contact with people at the university who know electronics and they have pointed me in the direction of others that may be happy to help with my project, i am waiting for them to reply to my emails currently.
Aims:
The aim of the exhibition is to create a space that feels haunted, where the focus becomes not on the equipment that produces the sound, but on the enclosing space and the people within it.
The aim will be to see if the listeners subvert any of the unspoken rules of the space in realising the space as a haunted site.
Parameters:
I have been advised that the exhibition does not require any direct feedback in form of writing and so this will not be included, the event will be recorded however.
A sign will be erected in the style of a 'do not touch' sign or a 'no flash photography'. saying 'silence is prohibited' defining the space as one for institutional critique and creational revolution.
The work will not be completely aural, the subwoofer's design allows for the sound to be felt in the floor and walls of the room. It will be interesting to see how people interact with the space when it is vibrating at such low frequencies.
Lights will be slightly dimmed, not completely but enough to infer that the focus is on the sound while still seeing the white walls in an uncanny way.
What does it mean to challenge the white cube through non-visual means?
My research aims to show how sound embodies the critiques of the white cube aesthetic.
- Sound brings attention to time, whereas the white cube distracts us from its effects.
- Sound opens our eyes to the spaces we are in, whereas the white cube paints space as an intentionally liminal and neutral container for content.
- Sound reveals the contextual relationships between ourselves and our surroundings, whereas the white cube sees these as distractions preferring instead to be a non place shutting out context as interference
- Sound opens up a dialogue that interacts with and includes an audience, whereas the white cube sees the body as obscuring obstacle and prefers silence even in the appreciation of visual works.
- Sound represents a force that bounces off of the walls looking to break free of the enclosed space, whereas the white cube confines art experience and mitigates significance through a separation from the outside world.
Artistic Review: Hans Haacke
An Artist that uses their voice as an artist to reveal and critique hidden connections in the art world, is acclaimed ‘godfather of institutional critique’ German artist Hans Haacke.
Haacke has always been interested in changing relationships by drawing attention to invisible connections. During his formative years as an artist in Germany, he was a member of ‘Zero’: an international group of artists that formed from common motivations to re-harmonize man with nature as we are diving deeper into a geological age of the Anthropocene, whereby man is dominating as ruler and set apart from the natural. Haacke’s most famous piece during this chapter of his career is Condensation Cube (1963-65); a plexiglass container, which holds a small amount of water inside. The external factors surrounding the cube, such as wind, humidity, the heat generated by visitors, the lighting of the gallery; the effects of all these invisible forces are then made observable in the augmented dynamics of the condensation inside the transparent box.
The transparency of the plexiglass and of the water, reflects his non-additive critique of the space that is similar to prior works I have reviewed: Anastasi's West wall and Pierre Huyghe's Timekeeper.
When you see something that is transparent, you aren’t looking at what is there, but instead you can see how the light appears warped around a suggested mass. In other words, you see a distorted reflection of the environment around it. Haacke’s Condensation cube is a transparent and dynamic mirror of a space that not only brings attention to the visual aesthetics of its location but also the invisible forces which alter the dynamics of the artefact. In this way, the artwork is responsive to the site it is installed into in a similar way to how sound interacts with a site.
Condensation Cube provides us a visual image of how the gallery space can never be a completely neutral container.
The transparency also assists in the statement of the work, the key element to the piece is not that the gallery affects specifically the water inside the cube, but to reveal otherwise unseen/ invisible effects within the gallery space as a whole. This therefore opens a discussion not dissimilar from Cage's 'there is no such thing as silence' as well as his comment on Rauschenberg's white paintings that they (and also therefore by association the walls of the white cube gallery) are airports for dust and light.
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