Cher Amis,

I would like to double up Guillaume’s Pot de départ tomorrow evening at 6:15 with my own farewell.

Together we will make a glouglou plusplus so please come prepared

I have really enjoyed my time on sabbatical in the Sound Perception and Design Team and look forward to continuing and developing the friendships, discussions and ideas that have been generated through this stay into the future.

With fond regards,
Stephen

Sonification Workshop

Friday 15-Monday 19 June

T-Labs, Ernst-Reuter-Platz 7, 10587 Berlin

Mathias Rath and Thomas Hermann organised the meeting at the T-labs telecom research building which is situated at the noisiest roundabout in Berlin. How do they get any work done here with the distraction of the Berlin skyline, the soccer-table game and the excellent coffee machine on the 19th floor cafeteria deck ? We found out the building is modelled on a ship as we moved betweendifferently themed cabins during the four days of the workshop, or was that workship ?

The twenty deck-hands in the workshop self-organised into four main project groups

* I was involved with the group exploring aesthetics in sonifications of elite rowing data.

* sonification of spatial gestures on mobile phones

* sonic spirit level

* sonification in support of shape feedback

brainstorming in the tiergarten biergarten

Rowing Team on the Coffee Deck

Wilkommen aboard the S.S.T-labs

The animated portholes

high flyers

beam us up Mathias

sonic-picnic

Tuesday 2 –  Friday 5 June 2009
IRCAM Sound Design and Perception Studio

This workshop will explore the design and production of interactive sounds through physical computing, rather than digital synthesis.
This will involve hands-on programming the Arduino and various sensors and actuators, and using Modalys, Rhino3D, Grasshopper and other shaping and 3d printing softwares.

Some project ideas:
* Micro-Intonarumori – motorised ratchets, mallets, scrapers and other physically produced sounding objects, modelled on the Futurists.
* sound of shape – physical modelling of 3d auditory shapes using Modalys
* shape of sound – generation of physical shapes from auditory sources in Processing, Sketchup etc.
* digital flesh – integrated sensor/actuator interfaces using piezos and speakers.
* digital ocarina – breathe and fingers to micro-synth.
* patsy growls and purrs in response to various forms of petting.

Olivier Houix + Rhythmic Motorshield

Stephen Barrass + Bend/Waveshield

Nicolas Miisdaris - sonic level

Congratulations to Sam Ferguson who took the prize of a MAX/MSP license for his piece HarmonicExons.

My piece YeastLur was modelled on the music of the Viking horn called a Lur. Nice try but no MAX license …

I actually meant to enter it into the artistic category, given the lack of any objective evaluation, but missed ticking the box. I suppose it was somewhat scientific in that there was an explicit rationale for the decision to organise the pitches so that the start codon produces a distinctive downward fanfare. The testable hypothesis would be that subjects can recongise boundaries between introns and extrons from this fanfare. But if you look at the data more closely you realise that this is a gross simplification. There was also an artistic rationale for the choice of the Lur music in the context of a concert in Denmark. But many of the other sonifications also had explicit rationales.

The concert raised the question of the distinction between scientific and artistic sonification. And what does judgement by popular appeal  have to do with either? Perhaps DESIGN provides a more suitable framework for understanding the multifaceted issues of form, function and popular communication through sound in sonifications. Design provides a framework for evaluating the usefulness of the sonification for a specific purpose. It also provides an openess to aesthetic aspects. As the foreword to the Brit Design Awards 2009 says, although satisfying the brief is paramount the cultural and social meaning of a design can also be critically important.

In an analysis of the 30 sonifications submitted to the Listening to the Mind Listening concert of sonifications at ICAD in Sydney 2004 we found  four major stages in the design process, and significant differences in the perception of functionality and aesthetics depending on whether the reviewer of the sonification was a sonification researcher, computer music composer, or a general listener.

“CITA is an innovative research environment exploring the emergent intersections between architecture and digital technologies. Identifying core research questions into how space and technology can be probed, CITA seeks to investigate how the current forming of a digital culture impacts on architectural thinking and practice.

CITA examines how architecture is influenced by new digital design- and production tools as well as the digital practices that are informing our societies culturally, socially and technologically. Using design and practice based research methods; the aim is to explore the conceptualisation, design and realisation of working prototypes. CITA consolidates new collaborations with interdisciplinary partners from the fields of computer graphics, human computer interaction, robotics, artificial intelligence as well as the practice based fields of furniture design, fashion and textiles, industrial design, film, dance and interactive arts.”

Mette concieved the concept of knitting architectural structures with a computer. Under her guidance the group has rapidly expanded to 20 researchers over the past 3 years and is attracting increasing interest and funding. The studio is full of hands-on works in progress. Dr. Martin Temke was shaping a barnacle like object designed to be attached to a ceiling and reflect laser lights. Jacob was working on a recursive algorithm to produce an exhibition stand with a mixture of functional surfaces interposed by organic forms. In the corner were some 3D prints of a bridge algortihmically produced with the Generative Components CAD/CAM software. Other software for parametric design and digital fabrication include rhino, grasshopper and catear.

A/Prof. Thomsen is an invited speaker at the URBAN ISLANDS Intensive Design Studio on Cockatoo Island in Sydney 13 – 25 July 2009.

These projects prove that meeting the needs of client and their brief are an essential aspect of design, nevertheless it is not always the most critical. Technical innovation is equally imperative, as is getting to grips with the cultural aspects of a project. It is not always what objects do but their meaning is also important.”

art+com - Kinetic Sculpture for the BMW Museum

“Previous designs by Japanese industrial designer Tokujin Yoshioka has been described as ‘quintessentailly Japanese’, characterized by a melancholic minimalism. The Venus Natural Crystal Chair presents a new experimental body of work, seeming to take Yoshioka to a more optimistic place. The Venus Chair is constructed from natural crystals, whilst submerged in a water tank. These conditions are ideal for the crystals to grow whilst attached to a fibre structure. The shape of the chair then evolves as the crystals multiple Challenging the way in which the making of objects is reliant on man-made applications and processes, the Venus Chair conforms to the power of nature."

Cloud, Digital Sculpture for British Airways, T5, Heathrow, London

Genometrics (Autumn/Winter 2005)

“Genometrics evolved from the idea of how different individuals living in London would fit into London life depending on the reaction of their DNA sequences to the London soundscape through a specifically designed programme. Each letter of their DNA sequence was mapped out on the garment and sensitised to reaact to different sounds in the soundscape.”

Kinship Journeys (Autumn/Winter 2003)

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This weekend I was invited to speak by Prof. Holger Schulze for the Aural City Hearings that are part of his Sound Studies programme at the University of Art in Berlin. Last time I was here in Berlin a convoy of semi-trailers  enveloped Berlin in doof doof for the Love Parade with levels of acoustic energy to sync your internal organs to the beat, so Aural City seemed a fitting theme.

My presentation links to the theme through a scenario that imagines a soundtrack of emotions generated from the financial markets at the big end of town mixed in with the trams, bawling crowds and backfiring of cars in the streetscape below. This idea, combined with the research on emotions in everyday sounds at IRCAM, has motivated the development of  an emotional level in my design methodology …

This is an interactive mindmap of the presentation where you can click on the links to hear examples.

The following presentation by Prof. Thomas Dullo described  research into Urban Sound Branding in which involved a study of residents living close to large scale sound producing events in order to learn how to manage and reduce perceptions of noise and annoyance.

Ernst-Reuter Platz

Prof. Alex Arteaga presented a 13 year project in which architectural elements will be designed to reduce the noise levels around the noisiest traffic roundabout in Berlin. This stimulated a lot of discussion which included fond memories, nostalgia and some resistance to the idea. Someone said it was the only place you could truly be alone in Berlin surounded by the blanket of noise.

The next day I went and lay on a park bench in the middle of the roundabout on a sunday afternoon in the beautiful spring weather. The all-encompassing ambience of fountains and  traffic is open and spacious, an alternative aural reality that removes you from the everyday, a lot like the sound of waves at the beach.

During dinner Prof Schulze told me about a book series on Sound Studies that he has established, and his plans for an international Journal of Sound Design. Georg Spehr has just published a book on Functional Sound in this series that collects together the current research in this area from Germany. They also pointed me to the upcoming publication of Michael Bull’s Auditory Culture Reader and Jonathern Stern’s Sound Studies Reader as resources for teaching Sound Design. Max Schneider pointed me to Sound Cloud which is a site that allows you to annotate the timeline of online soundfiles.

In return I pointed them to some of the Australian activity in the area such as the online journal SCAN which is publishing an upcoming special issue on sound design, and Nigel Helyer’s Sound Culture site.