Soundform No.1

Soundform No.1

What is the difference between space and place? The humanistic geographer, Yi Fu Tuan, describes place as something special. Everywhere is a space, but a place has human meaning inscribed. According to Tuan, space becomes place through the emotive human experience. There are many spaces in our world. For example, the old abandoned church that sits empty across the boulevard from your office. However, if this building had been the church your grandmother played the organ in, all those years ago, then that would make it a place, and not a space, to you. Experience, memory, and emotional connection transform a space into a place.

Humans have a natural capacity for understanding place. In nature, this runs much deeper. Human evolution made our bodies, like other animals, physiologically integrated with the natural world in unforeseen ways. While modern day culture is full of stories and experiences that help us easily define place in our lives, nature is more elusive, older, deeper, more mysterious, and abstract. We have cultural mementos, totems and abstractions all around us that represent nature, but many humans living in urban spaces are cut-off from their origins and the meaning.

How does nature become place; and can art invoke a similar experiences to those found in nature? In this work, we explore these questions. Using simple passive materials, and by relying on a surprising physical phenomena for sonic experience, we attempt to activate space, while inviting our audience to discover for themselves, a new place.

Soundform No.1 is a minimalistic soundscape and kinetic art installation that transforms heat energy into a poetically evolving, spatio-temporal composition. 

The sculpture is constructed of many various-length, hung-glass cylinders. Subtle changes in airflow cause the glass pieces to turn in different directions creating a visualization of currents in the room. Sound is created by thermo-acoustically, as heating elements inside each glass are modulated by computer control. 

When one of the heating elements is activated, an electrical coil inside the glass begins to glow. As the glass warms, a nickel-titanium spring (shape memory alloy) near the top of the cylinder is also heated, causing the cylinder to pull itself upright. When raised to the critical angle, a thermoacoustic phenomenon produces an audible tone in the cylinder. The sound created by the glass pieces is a product of rapid changes of air temperature inside the resonant chamber, which creates self-amplifying, standing wave. The effect is accredited to P. L. Rijke, a professor of physics at Leiden University in the Netherlands, who in 1859 discovered this method of using heat for sustaining sound.

Through modulations of heat, light and motion, Soundform No.1 creates an ever-changing atmosphere of zen-like, tonal patterns and visual effects. Through these media we attempt to invoke Tuan’s psychogeographic theory by inviting visitors to discover a new place.