sound, architecture, and perception
Soundforms (2017)
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,
under instruction of Chris Cornelius
Independent study, original work by author.
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What is sound, but a mechanical wave transmitting energy through a medium? What we identify as the tone of a clarinet, the bark of a dog, or the hum of a light ballast is no more than thousands of compressions and rarefactions occurring every second between the molecules of nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide, and water vapor that make up our atmosphere. Once impacting the diaphragm of the human eardrum, acoustic energy is translated to a perception of sound—a subjective construct occurring within the neurons of the human brain. Musical enjoyment, verbal communication, spatial awareness, and survival instincts all rely on auditory phenomena, and the ability of the human brain to make sense of the billions upon billions of energy exchanges occurring every second on a molecular scale.
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Yet within the disciplinary knowledge of design, engineering, and architecture exists a tendency to measure, standardize, and compartmentalize aspects of sound through an objective lens. Sound transmission and reflection is primarily understood in an orthographic environment through modes of representation that suit the design and construction of large, enclosed spaces. As Michelle Addington points out in The Phenomena of the Non-Visual, the arrangement of surfaces within a room, represented two-dimensionally, dominate the field of acoustic design. Because wavelengths typically exist between two cm and two m, traditional means of representation simplify sound phenomena into a series of abstract “waves” that may be engineered to resonate within a room.[1]
Architecture bound by orthographic representation assigns hierarchies to objects that serve only to obscure the true exchanges occurring on multiple, complex scales. What would it take to instead conceive of Architecture as the design of energy exchanges related to the subjective experience? How can we envision new relationships between sense-data, form, and representation?​​
If we consider the tools and techniques we use to reproduce sound, we may envision novel ways to represent sound that turn the objectification of sound on its head, focusing instead on representation and subjectivity. Sanford Kwinter, through The Complex and the Singular, suggests that the object can operate as the hinge between “clusters of action, affectivity, and matter” and “a specific regime,” implying technique offers a way to dissect the objective world and bring it into alignment with the subject. The tool of the loudspeaker was literally revolutionary, as it provided a framework through which society could apply technique and action to social-technical events. In the same way technique provided an architecture of social interaction through sound transmission (what Foucault defined as a “social technical object”), can the authorship of new tools and techniques provide a rupture for the traditional representation of sound in architecture?[11]
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Soundforms attempts to break down the objectification of sound phenomena through the process of “index mapping”. This begins with a speaker cone, and an MP3 encoding of Respighi’s Pines of Rome, the first of a series of objects whose “index” can be transformed into new maps and forms. The first sound device indexes the physical vibrations and standing waves produced by The Pines of Rome, allowing a pen-tripod to draw a sound map that corresponds with the intensity of sound over time over a territory. Indeterminacy plays a role in the success of the sound map: Is the drawing a unique index of the music itself, or merely a product of the instrument set-up? (As indicated by repeated patterns occurring through sets of drawing attempts.)
The two-dimensional drawing is translated into 3D form through a computer program, interpreting density of points into vertical height on a topography. This is the second of a series of indexes meant to obscure and reverse the relationship between subject, object, and representation. Where representation all too often describes a phenomenon (as in the sound reflection diagram), the index allows representation to play an active role in the design process. Representation is no longer an end product, but rather a source material for a non-linear feedback loop. The topography informs the interpretation of the drawing, which in turn forces re-assessment of the source material—the music. The plaster cast provides a spatial interpretation, complete with various depths and voids. Finally, the original music is played back through a vibrating sound motor, utilizing the existing foam model as a diaphragm. Through each model, sound is indexed using a series of tools and techniques, each of which provides unique forms of representation for the original soundtrack. Technique provides form for sound, which in turn suggests an Architectural framework for design.
As a disciplinary technique, sound index mapping can restructure the role representation plays in an iterative design process. Sound phenomena do not have to be constrained to the limits of the objects, rooms, and standardized measurement. As Architects, we can apply technique to sound phenomena, drawing objects and representation into a subjective framework. We should utilize the vast array of tools and instruments that are capable of measuring and indexing sound, and encourage innovation of representation techniques.
Soundforms differs from other representations of sound due to the indeterminacy afforded by the tools and indexes. This in turn requires a subjective interaction with the models, one that favors change and transformation. For the listeners and viewers of Soundforms, patterns emerge from drawings, evoking images of Rome as seen by a satellite. Spaces and voids make themselves known in the models, suggesting a spatial aspect to the music that may never have existed before. The objects inform the representation, and in turn, the representation informs the object. All the while, the subject acts as mediator.
Sound expresses itself through many scales, mediums, and motions, so why should representation limit itself to standardized measurements and orthographic projections? Representation should operate at the hinge between the subject and the tools of architecture, to provide novel ways to interpret and make sense of the world.
[1] Michelle Addington, “The Phenomena of the Non-Visual,” Softspace: From a Representation of Form to a Simulation of Space, ed. Sean Lally and Jessica Young (Abington: Routledge, 2007), 46.
[11] Sanford Kwinter, Architectures of Time (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2001), 21.
