New Schematic For Silos

The Evolution of Gear Art

Gear Design and Geometry

Cognition

The acoustical composition that I have made is created by 8 recordings of my car approximately 9 minutes in length each. It illustrates the complex environment of the car and brings to light the sounds of the vehicle that we are not used to hearing. Furthermore, during the process of doing the recordings, I became fascinated with how exactly my body influences and narrates the sound of the recording. Through reading and researching auto mechanics, I have been able to imagine the path of my actions through the engine and I have been able to understand each sound that is produced. However, the experience of driving remains incognitive as I first discovered it to be before beginning my research and recordings. If we could experience the auto mechanics visually and at an overwhelming scale while we are driving, perhaps, the practice of drawing would become more cognitive.

[The User] an art collaborative by Thomas McIntosh and Emmanuel Madan in Montreal created an awe inspiring series of works titled 'Coincidence Machines.' The first installation was an 8 foot tall amphitheater for one. Lining the conic shaped walls are over 1200 small IKEA clocks. The clocks are untouched, original and completely utilitarian. Singularly, the clocks would barely pass for a bed side table, but together, the symphony of small engines overwhelm the viewer with an unequaled experience of listening.

The true phenomenon of my research is the incognitive relationship between man and machine which was been emphasized by the acoustical and material conditions of the automobile. Interestingly, this relationship can be analyzed anywhere we look. We use machines for the final purpose that they were designed for and we are content knowing nothing about how they work. A car is a means of transportation. A microwave heats our food. A dishwasher cleans our dirty dishes. If we understood exactly how each of these inventions worked mechanically, would it change the way we use them. The driver who is a also a mechanic is likely a more cognitive driver because he is more concerned with the well being of the mechanical components and he understands what habits of driving are affecting the deterioration of those components.

What if we drove the car from within the engine, or rather, the engine components surrounded us as we drove. Of course each component has been specifically placed for its purpose but if we were visually made aware of the ‘kinetic motion’ of the automobile as we drove, how would it change our driving habits. Would our experience of using the automobile cognitively influence our habits.

Notational Drawings

Linear Mapping of the sound recordings of my car is meant to illustrate each place where I recorded from. The car unfolds to create a planar view of the mechanics so that each component can be viewed simultaneously.

Notational Plan. This drawing is meant to illustrate the sound motion and material of my recordings. The Linear Mapping of the car was used to spacialy orient the graphics of each sound.



Elevation of my engine. 2 elevations are overlaid on one another to view both elevations simultaneously.


Notational Section. This drawing is meant to illustrate the sound motion and material of my recordings. The section of the engine was used to spacialy orient the graphics of each sound.

Octaphonic Sound Spatialization - Black Box

Through out our time in Montreal we had the privilege of using the "Black Box" in the Hexagram program of Concordia University. The "Black Box" is a massive acoustically designed room outfitted with plugs and outlets for a variety of lighting and acoustical equipment. We created an octaphonic sound system in the space using a MOTU and 8 Amazing speakers. Compared to the stereo Logitech speakers that I am use to hearing my sounds on, the quality was unimaginable. I was hearing new sounds within my recordings that I didn't know existed.

We were asked to create a 2 minute composition of our recordings for the black box octaphonic system which would be presented to friends and colleagues of our professor Patrick Harrop, all of whom had various and extensive backgrounds in electronic and sound art. Two people attended: Gerard and Shannon.

Without speaking at all, we would each play our composition, then we explained what we the recording was and what exactly we were each focusing on. Then, an open discussion would occur and finally we would listen to the composition again.

Continuing with my fascination of the decay of sound, I chose to highlight the unfamiliar sounds by playing them first through certain speakers then fading in additional tracks through out the 2 minutes. The engine and the fuel injector are much more recognizable as a car then the master cylinder for example which is the sound of friction as a piston moves through a chamber changing the hydraulic pressure of the brake fluid. sounds like this set the stage at the beginning and then as the other sounds are faded in, the unfamiliar sounds are more recognizable since you have already heard them on their own.

I used Ableton Live to create the composition.

This is the sequencer page where the fades and sound animations are controlled and designed.

I created a stereo composition as well that has been mixed down from the octaphonic composition.

Stereo Mix Down

Capteur >>> Emmeteur

What is the relationship between man and machine? What is an automobile without the influence of human interaction? After beginning my recordings of my car I began to realize the overwhelming influence that the body and the kinesthetic motion of the body has on the operation and design of the automobile. Interestingly, after 5 years of driving, this thought had never occurred to me; the act of driving quickly becomes an incognitive habit and therefore the car itself becomes an incognitive prosthetic of the body. With this thought in mind, how do we define the separation between man and machine? Does the brain send a signal that says, “apply pressure to middle pedal with right foot to brake” or does the brain send a signal that simply says “brake car.”

Modern efforts to separate acoustical transmission from engine to interior are being implicated on a standard basis. In the past ten years alone, interior noise levels at autobahn velocities have been reduced by 50% (Handbook of Automotive Engineering, Braess and Seiffert). However, below a certain noise level, it can be said that a car will suffer from a subjective loss of dynamic sound interaction and responsiveness. “In this regard, it is more than mere conjecture to say that an absolutely silent vehicle would also represent a soulless vehicle. I found this quote particularly interesting for the reiteration of the personification of the “soul of a vehicle.” For example, while I am driving, I often will not look at the speedometer or the RPM when I am need of shifting gears but rather will shift gears based upon the sound that I am hearing and recognizing out of habit. Therefore, does a level of interaction with the soul of the human define the soul of the vehicle; furthermore, are the sole of the human and the sole of the car in fact one and the same?

Incognitive Prosthetics

photo

Linear Spatialization

3 books obtained from the Red River Collegiate Library began to give me insight into the inner workings of auto-mechanics; something I was quite content being oblivious too but will undoubtedly be helpful far past the semester's end.

Automotive technology by M.J. Nunney.

Auto mechanics fundamentals : how and why of the design, construction and operation of automotive units by Martin W. Stockel.

Handbook of automotive engineering / edited by Hans-Hermann Braess and Ulrich Seiffert ; translated by Peter L. Albrecht.

I decided that I was specifically interested in the narrative of sound that my body dictates from the drivers seat. I used the books to research the direct path of my body through each control of the "drivers manifold" (as defined by Handbook of Automotive Engineering), through the engine and finally into the environment.


Select each title to hear sound clip.

Interior

Brake Pedal
Stick
Clutch Pedal
Gas Pedal
Dashboard

Engine

Brake Booster
Master Cylinder
Fuel Injector
Air Filter
Disc Brake
Transmission
Clutch
Engine
Spark Plug
Air Intake

Exterior

Wheels
Shock (bottom)
Shock (top)
Muffler
Fuel Tank

Man: Machine: Environment

Rhythm, tempo and notation are what we understand as the standards of musical measurement. In regards to the audio recordings of my car, the rhythm and tempo are defined by two things:

1. The environment - road conditions pertaining to traffic, stop lights, turns, etc.
2. Man - personal habits of acceleration, clutch control, shifting, braking, etc.


The driver of the car or the composer as I will attempt to get in the habit of calling him, plays each key of the car and sends signals to produce sounds in various locations of the engine system. A cyclical relationship of interdependency is created between man, machine, and environment. The man reacts to the environment, the car reacts to the man, and the environment reacts to the car as it continuously changes due to high velocities.

I have divided the recordings of the car into three categories:

The Interior: Sounds that are directly created by my bodies influence, eg: the brake pedal
The Engine: Sounds that are created by the various parts of the engine.
The Exterior: Sounds that are created by the outside environment

The Drive for Knowledge

Recording setup in my car.


During my first series of recording (which I have already posted below) while I was driving my car and patiently waiting to hear the results of my first attempts at recording, a eureka moment overwhelmed me. I suddenly became aware of the ergonomics of the drivers surroundings as an interface of perfectly placed controllable extensions of the engine. This surprising perspective on the environment I had previously taken for granted made me aware of how much of an impact the body has on the car.

I instantly started to imagine how the pressure I apply to the Brake Pedal or the Gas Pedal would move through the engine being transferred into different types of forces, creating combustion, creating motion, stopping motion. But soon realized that my imagination can only take me as far as my knowledge would allow. I had no idea what laid under the hood of my beloved 1998 Hyundai Accent. For me, a car was a tool of transportation and as long as I made it to school on time then the simple task of driving the car was enough knowledge for the time being.

But the curiosity of the muffled sounds beyond the dashboard demanded that I learn more. That I learn exactly how the pressure that I apply on the Brake Pedal is transferred into the deceleration of my car.


Some images of the microphones attached to my car

Engine


Air Intake


Shock (Bottom)

Recording in Stereo

After my first series of recordings, I realized that my next step would have to be constructing a better means of recording in order to capture a better quality of sound and hopefully have more more control over the sounds that I am capturing.

I bought a Behringer 5-Input 2-Bus Mixer with XENYX Mic Preamp and British Eq despite the warnings of never connecting the piezo mics to an AC powered amp. This amplifier/mixing board would allow me to capture a wider range of sounds and also to isolate sounds using the Trim, EQ and Level functions on the mixing board. I also ordered a package of new piezo discs off the internet with varying frequencies (the larger the disc, the lower the frequency).

Secondly, with my growing knowledge of how recording and microphones and specifically, contact microphones worked, I created a way to record in Stereo format using contact microphones.

I used 2 Piezo discs, the first (left) is .6KHZ/44mm, the second (right) is 6.5KHZ/20mm. They are each wired to their own 22 gauge strand of the shielded audio cable and they share the ground wire. Then each opposing end of the strands and the ground wire are soldered to the appropriate components of the 1/4" stereo input plug.

By using 2 very different frequencies in each mic, the range of sound that is captured is very wide and it should make it easier and more accurate when I try to isolate certain frequencies.

This recording is from 5 points of my engine
1. Engine
2. Air Intake
3. Hot
4. Rotator Belt
5. Shock

The clip is another 30 second sample from the original and the tracks are played simultaneously.
Again the rhythm of each track is slightly different but if you try to listen to individual sounds it is interesting to follow the poly-temporal scale of each recording in relation to the others.

The Medium: Contact Microphones

The immediate question that followed the decision to acoustically study my car was... how? I was not interested in the sounds that I normally hear, therefore a typical microphone was not the most suitable answer.

I decided to use contact microphones that I built using piezoelectric discs. Following the directions of "Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking" by Nicolas Collins, I began experimenting with different kinds of Piezo Discs that I extracted from toys, buzzers, smoke alarms, etc. Piezo Discs are widely used as buzzers in most toys that make basic sounds, they are mass produced and are very cheap. Rather than a buzzer, they also work much better as a contact microphone when they are properly wired and connected to an amplifier.

Piezo discs use piezoelectric properties of crystals to create high pitched noises when a voltage is applied. They are made by bonding a thin layer of ceramic or crystal to a very thin, flexible brass disc. The first series of piezo mics that I made came from Piezo Buzzers bough from The Source and an old smoke alarm. These discs worked when I connected them to the shielded audio wire and then to a small 9volt amplifier, but the quality of sound was weak and there was a lot of static noise. This was due to every part of the construction being the bottom of the line. I soon realized, that with electronics... you get what you pay for.

This is a series of recordings that I did with the 9volt amp and the piezo disc from a buzzer. The disc was set up on 5 different places.
1. The engine
2. The wind sheild
3. The wheel well
4. The muffler
5. The radio speaker

The trip was the same for each recording, however the rhythm was changed by traffic, stop lights, speed, etc. Each track is played simultaneously. This is a 30 second clip from the original video.

SIlence of the Hyundai

I have chosen my car as a subject to study the mundane, the muffled, the quiet and the toned out sounds of my everyday life. My car is 1998 Hyundai Accent GSI Sport. It is old, refurbished and completely banal, however I spend a large portion of my day in my car in transit from school to home, to friends, to work, etc.

One main reason my car struck me as a perfect study is because more often then not, I drive without music or radio on. I enjoy the silence of the road at night when I am coming home late from studio or a friends. When I began to think about this notion of the 'silence within a car' I found it very interesting because the car is anything but silent.

Sound Artist: Janet Cardiff

Two projects by sound artist Janet Cardiff have given me inspiration into the medium and the method of recording the sounds. The first is called "Forty-Part Motet"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6nCFy_81n8

The following article gives a great description of the piece,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/06/AR2005120601697.html

How can I apply the ideas of the decay of sound to the mundane sound that I will record? In Forty- Part Motet, forty different sounds are recorded from the symphony in order to produce the grand sound. In the Mundane, is there enough layers to successfully analyze the individual sound that comprises the whole.

The second piece by Janet cardiff is called "Winter of Sound."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDPcUmeAuI8

In this piece, Janet Cardiff records the sounds of the street as she walks. She uses two kinds of microphones in order to capture all of the possible sounds. She uses contact mics (piezo mics) to capture the sounds of machines and vibrations from cars and buses as they pass by amongst other vibrations. The piece is interesting because she overlaps the sounds that she records and amplifies them. The sounds that we are used to hearing quietly are brought to the front and are prominent in the recordings. This alone creates a phenomenological experience because it reverses the hierarchy of the sounds. We hear the clicks and vibrations which are normally registers as a hum in the background and the passing of cars and and people somehow fade into the background.

The Mundane

Initially stalled by trying to think of an immaterial phenomenological sound that the fit the criteria of being poly temporal and poly scalar, I decided to approach the project from another angle. I am interested in the sounds of the everyday. The mundane. The banal.

There is nothing Phenomenological about the mundane sounds that we hear everyday, however, perhaps this is because we are not actually listening to these sounds. Everything makes a sound, a vibration, a movement, etc. Our ears do pick up on many of these things because we do not want to hear them. There is nothing exciting, informative or new about the sounds that we are used to hearing everyday.

What are the sounds that we are used to hearing so often that we barely register them?
What are the sounds that we try to tone out of our daily activities?
What are the sounds that we try to eliminate through mechanical and technological sound proofing?
What are the sounds that we do not hear but are constantly around us?

How can we take the mundane and create a phenomenological experience through a recording and a transformation?

Day 1

Recording or documenting an immaterial phenomena of light or sound seams like a simple task with straight forward criterion. The task at hand asks us to record a phenomenon of a building interface highlighting sound or light that has a level of interactivity and responsiveness with humans, deals with a threshold condition, contemplates materiality as a means of transmittance and delivers a poly-rhythmic/poly-temporal and poly-scalar series of events. A task that is much more difficult.

What is an immaterial phenomenon?
Immaterial -- not consisting of matter.
Phenomenon -- any event, circumstance, or experience that is apparent to the senses and that can be scientifically described or appraised. Merriam- Webster Online Dictionary

Together, these words suggest that the event, circumstance, or experience that is apparent to the senses can actually NOT be measured objectively in a scientific manner.
Subjectively discovering how to materialize this phenomenon will allow a rigorous exploration to develop into an understanding of the implications that could evolve.

Choosing a phenomenon that that follows all of the criteria poses a difficult decision. What is more important, the medium or the message, or can we say that "the medium is the message?"
Is it more important to choose a content that has depth and is vague enough for original and insightful explorations?
Or, is the content irrelevant (as long as the criteria is followed) if the medium has enough originality and possibility to explore the content in a fresh way?

Some of the preliminary research that I have done has sparked ideas:
- How can we record how our eye physically receives different levels of light and contrarily,
how can we record the light that our eye recieves?
- How does sound travel through water?
5x as fast in sea water than in air
20x-30x as fast in distilled water than in sea water
what is the affect of "shadow zones" in water where sound waves do not travel.
- How does natural light affect our perception of traffic (pedestrian, car, other) durring different times of day?