Subject: Re: _Uncorrelated_
From: David Mooney (moko@city-net.com)
Date: Thu Mar 22 2001 - 17:05:27 EST
David Hirst wrote:
> Sylvi
> Your reference to museums & galleries has reminded me of the work done by
> several Australian companies & artists on sound installations (often
> soundscapes) in museums and galleries - mainly in the United States.
There used to be a place in San Francisco called "the Audium" (sp?) You went into a
dark room. The fixed seats were surrounded (back, front, sides, up and down) by
about 400 speakes of all sizes. It was unbelievable. You were THERE in the
soundscape, especially when the marching band came through, though in the end it
was kind of like those old stereo demo records (a little nostalgia for the old
folks) with jet planes flying through your living room. Why reproduce a "real
soundscape?" What's the point? Go anywhere and stand still for 4'33"
>
>
> The first of these was founded by composer Les Gilbert and was originally
> named Sound Design Studio. This company's work included sound installations
> at the San Diego Zoo's ape enclosure and a rain forest environment in
> Osaka. These setups were multi-speaker (ie > 32 channels). Composer David
> Chesworth also worked with Les and created some of his own multi-speaker
> installations at Melbourne's Southbank and recently for the Olympics in
> the environment outside the Homebush Stadium.
>
> In more recent times Sound Design studio became Magian Design Studio when
> the company moved into presenting multi-media installations. Since then
> their focus has been on installations inside buildings with recent examples
> are the John G Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, the American Natural History
> Museum in New York, and Mandalay Bay Museum in Las Vegas.
>
> Finally I come to my main point: I worked briefly for Magian and in
> conversations I had with Les he has emphasized that carefully shaping an
> individual sound's amplitude is critical to the sort of spatialization he
> does. To that end the company created their own hardware that could perform
> realtime control of amplitude, triggering and location of sounds stored
> both individually and as ambiances on separate tracks on CDs (these
> functions are now done in software written by Jim Sosnin using soundfiles
> on PCs). Sensors within the gallery space detect the presence and motion of
> people to trigger and control these functions. The other critical element
> Les referred to was being able to situate speakers in exactly the right
> position for the shape of the room, position of the listeners etc. To
> achieve this the company worked hard over many years to be involved in the
> design and construction of the buildings the installations are going into,
> so they could stipulate where the speakers would be. They have been very
> successful in doing this.
>
> Some links:
> Magian - http://www.magiandesignstudio.com/
> Other Australians working in the sound installation field:
> Nigel Frayne
> Garth Paine - www.activatedspace.com.au
>
> cheers
> David
>
> At 04:14 AM 21/03/2001 -0700, you wrote:
> >hello
> >
> >i thought of IMAX etc but i wonder if this type of sound 'experience' has been
> >done w/ electroacoustic concerts with or without images, moving and still.
> >besides just using separate CDs w/ speakers, the Audio Box [or transferred to
> >Tascam/ADAT] could be set up in museum/gallery or concert hall to set
> >spacialization ... timed or triggered ... but ...
> >
> >what would the effects/results be? would it more realistically re:present the
> >'real soundscape' and be able to 'transform th sounds from virtually real
> >through abstract', 'subvert the expected' or 'extend/encourage aural
> >images/imaginations'? what would the 'art' look/sound like?
> >
> >if there isn't a study it would be an interesting and worthwhile endeavor. to
> >know what and why such sounds are being used ... back to th' box/books ...
> >ruthcrawfordseeger ...
> >
> >macCormac / sylvi
>
> David Hirst
> Lecturer - Educational Design
> Teaching Learning and Research Support
> University of Melbourne
> Victoria, 3010
> Australia
> ph +61 3 8344 7568
-- David Mooney dmooney@city-net.com http://www.city-net.com/~moko/"Opaque melodies that would bug most people" (Don "Captain Beefheart" Van Vliet)
The Rhythmicon: http://www.city-net.com/~moko/rhome.html
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