Team: Binru Liu/ Catherine Achieng/ Qendresa Selimi/ Zhaolu Song
Brief: Re-design the acoustic properties of a physical space.
Time: 07.05.2021-13.05.2021
Meeting with Creative technology Lab
By doing the previous sound experiments last week, we knew that we would need some audio technologies to realize the interactive effects. So, we contacted the CTL team and understand some software, like touch designer, p5, processing, vvvv and hardware Kinect.
Participants = Performers?
What I’m interested in is Kinect, hardware that can trace people’s gestures. What if we encourage people to explore space in a playful way by tracing their movements? How about just show participants their movements and sound in real-time? In that way, it responded to what Steph said on the brief day: it is an intimate creation and reaction between us, the creators and the participants. Creators create an experience for participants, but participants give feedback by being performers. Combined with the sound visualization experiment I did last week, I drew the sketch below. After the tutorial with John, he thought it was more like a method, but we still need to think about our concept.
“Participants = Performers” idea. Sketch by me.
“Soundscape”: the photography of sound
With further research, we found an interesting concept: soundscape. Sound as a medium should be considered not only for the information and meaning it transmits, but also for the direct effect of sound as a physical environment on the human senses, which is called soundscape. What is important about the soundscape is that it is a powerful tool that helps humans relate to their surroundings. Compared to landscape, a soundscape consists of events heard not objects seen.
Inspired by this concept, Binru came up with the idea that reproducing historical sounds to recreate the historical scenarios. Participants will hear sounds from different historical times in different areas. This idea made me think that sound is a virtual element that can bring something that doesn’t exist anymore, just like AR technology.
Historical sound idea. Diagram by Binru.
The missing sound
Reviewed all the previous ideas, I found there is something in common that bring sounds that don't belong to the place to create a new experience. So, I thought about bringing the feeling of the restaurant to the dining table by creating a soundscape with 3D audio. Catherine suggested we can choose bar booth as our micro-level space where contains many sounds and people’s memory. I also interviewed some friends and asked them about what kind of sounds in bars they miss a lot. I found that the sound that the majority of people miss is laugher and chatting which is related to people and memory.
Missing sound interview. Diagram by Qendrasa and me.
Presentation day
Presentation. Picture by Ula.
In the presentation, we showed research about soundscape and the dining table idea. The general feedback is that soundscape and 3D is a good idea, but a bar booth is probably not an ideal space. It is kind of facial and the lockdown will end soon when bars can open again. So, Ala encouraged us to explore more different spaces with contrast sounds. Besides, he mentioned the accessibility of sounds in different spaces and making kits for participation. John liked the concept of 'soundmark' and the metaphor connection between soundscape and photography and wondered how we will develop it further.
This week was stressful for our group, we tried to explore some technologies related to sound but we found it’s hard to apply to ideas without special equipment and sound coding knowledge. We brainstormed several ideas, but they are not concrete. Next week, we will record some sounds to find some inspiration, learn how to make 3D audio, and prepare an audio prototype for middle review.
References
R Murray Schafer (1993). The soundscape: the tuning of the world. Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books; United States.
Thurnell-Read, T. (2020). British people are really missing the pub – here’s why. [online] The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/british-people-are-really-missing-the-pub-heres-why-154585 [Accessed 12 May 2021].
Guzy, M. (2017) The Sound of Life: What Is a Soundscape? Available at: https://folklife.si.edu/talkstory/the-sound-of-life-what-is-a-soundscape (Accessed: 12 May 2021)
Guzy, M. (2017) The Sound of Life: The Making of a Soundscape. Available at: https://folklife.si.edu/talkstory/the-sound-of-life-the-making-of-a-soundscape (Accessed: 12 May 2021)
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