User:Yoana Buzova/self-directed3

introduction

My self-directed research in the third trimester is a continuation of my project during the second trimester. It is a combination of photographs, objects and sound. Briefly... In the second trimester I collected large scale panorama photos of different streets when the daylight is gone. Then used the lit windows as input to create punch card compositions. I built a music box that plays the generated melodies. In the third trimester I was interested in developing this urban encoding by bringing the sound of the street back to the street. I am fascinated by transformation and contrast. Scaling a busy street with buildings and many homes into a minimal analog melody, played by a small mechanical object. This determined the development during the third trimester and I decided to enclose the loop of the code I encode and decode again. I built a concrete speaker, to bring back the code, where it originated, on the street. I want to seal the moments I collected into a secure object, to preserve them in a way that they exist again on the street.

Street compositions

Description

This project is about encoding and decoding, in other words, defining the transformation of symbols from one set of symbols to another one. I use the evening streets as an input.The time when daylight fades and people are back home, windows start lighting up. I record the buildings along a taken street and use the lit windows on different floors to create a code for a music box punch card. The punch card is decoded by the box into a tune. The outcome is a rhythmic soundscape of the street. The sound is a reflection of a self-organized pattern of urban activity. Its variation and complexity depends on scale and liveliness of the environment. The result is a custom made music box and street view punch cards.

A reason to create a physical object is the transient nature of the information transmitted. The situations that exist at that very moment and are now materialized into paper and continue to exist as code. Transforming scale is curious when using a small, simple device, such as a music box as a decoder. A street fits in a box, in a hand.

NOTE:

Initially I build a speaker and amplified the music box with a piezo pick-up. In the course of the third trimester I decided it is unnecessary to the project to amplify the sound while performing the punch-card composition. It has to be intimate, acoustic and simple.

Background

The role of entropy, a measure of unpredictability or information content. Measured in bit, the measure of surprise. On or Off, Yes or No, Light or Dark. The unpredictability if urban code.

My project was triggered by my media object writings and thoughts. Initially, I wanted to look at signal in terms of the way we receive information. Any form of information is signal. How can we transform, simplify, reduce or decompose information we communicate every day, into essentials of form, color. Simple visual code. Something we see as a dynamic abstraction, but actually a carrier of the same signal in a different form. The self-organised pattern that is behind the information.This derives from my interest in abstraction and the signals it communicates. I take as a reference point the research and work of Oscar Fischinger, Whitney brothers, Norman McLaren, Hans Richter( Rhythmus 21,23,25), . Experiments on graphical sound, early soviet inventions, work of Daphne Oram, and presently Derek Holzer. Hans Richter talks about the shape of feelings, a notion that relates to Suzanne Langer’s idea that artistic forms have the virtual shape of emotions. Signal, information -- shapes.

Oskar Fischinger's idea, that "everything in the world has a spirit that can be released through its sound." Later inspired John Cage to begin exploring the sounds produced by hitting various non-musical objects, though not sharing the idea of spirituality.

The street is an enormous source of information. I simply wanted to create sound from light and found a simple generative way that happens every evening in cities.

Process

I spend a lot of time in trains recently, especially in the evening. The train tracks go trough cities and close to buildings. i was curios to listen to the sound of streets we passed by.

sketching in photos

sketching on paper, trying to figure a way to create my punch cards

I discovered a voyeurism element in having large scale panoramas

Development

working on completing the loop ------> bringing the compositions back to the street

The music box, playing the street compositions is recorded to be brought to the street again. Small, quiet and heavy. It seamlessly loops in a concrete speaker placed on the ground. The melody is subtle and blends with the ambient sound. It is there not to be notices right away, it is there to be discovered.