Sound as a Malleable Terrain

As soon as a sound physically exists, it sets into vibration a defined space.

Sonic effect describes an interaction between the physical sound environment, the sound milieu of a social-cultural community, and the internal soundscape of every individual.

An idea of playing the city via it's design and thereby modulating it's vibrational effects.

The chinese model preferred fluid adaptation to the changing terrain. Preparedness for this constant shifting ground, and the renewal of potential produced by the mutating environment.

The device made it possible to construct a sonic pyramid up to 3500 meters in height, bathing the jungle canopy with an invisible and mobile architecture.

Listening for microsignals, in an immediately present future, where the present virtuality coexists with the resonances and vibrations of the past and opens on to it's futurity.

What is the sonic instrumentarium of an urban environment?

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Mark Bain - The Live Room
Attaches resonators to buildings to make them resonate. This trembling envelope produces a vibrational topology or connective tissue between buildings and bodies.

the concrete ripples and pulses with invisible vortical force fields

Cymatics revolves around the way in which materials, objects and entities affect and are affected by vibration and the way rhythmic motion can become apparent in static objects as well as in moving objects, producing not just patterns but forms continuous with the vibrational environment.

An echo cannot occur without a distance between surfaces for the sounds to bounce from. But the resonation is not on the walls. It is in the emptiness between them. It fills the emptiness with it's complex patterning.

molecular texturhythm & microsonic turbulence

The conceptual power of audio effects is in their potential to preempt virtual sonic spaces that do not yet actually exist, population real spaces with audio hallucinations.

Perception is a self-tuning process, in which the pick-up of environmental information is intrinsically reinforcing,
so that the system self-adjusts so as to optimize its resonance with the environment .... Perception is essentially exploratory, seeking out sources of stimulation in order to discover more about the environment.

Eric F. Clarke, Ways of listening

day 1 (31.05)

~activities

studio buildup / mise en place
ordering parts for data gatherers
recording pile drivers across the canal
recording water in pipes
the terrain as a 3d model
a walk in pictures

~ reflect

?tabula rasa?
collecting and archiving
get to know each other

~ data

-

~rituals

listening session/ meditation

numbers (0-10):

body
-arythmia (irregularity of rythms)
-eurythmia (harmony of rythms)
-isorythmia (equality of rythms)

creation
-arythmia (irregularity of rythms)
-eurythmia (harmony of rythms)
-isorythmia (equality of rythms)

mental
-arythmia (irregularity of rythms)
-eurythmia (harmony of rythms)
-isorythmia (equality of rythms)

the drawing of a daily curve

starting the morning ritual......

pre-search.....

Literature List:

Sonic Warfare - Steve Goodman (2009)
Microsound - Curtis Roads (2001)
Rhythmanalysis - Henri Levebre (1992)
Figures In Air: Essays Toward a Philosophy of Audio - Micah Silver (2019)
The Soundscape - R Murray Schafer (1977)
Deep Listening 'A Composer's Sound Practice' - Pauline Oliveros (2005)

Rhythm is platform independent. A composition of materials can result in almost any rhythm.

Everywhere where there is interaction between a place, a time and an expenditure of energy, there is rhythm

Seismological dimension of music?

To grasp a rhythm it necessary to have been grasped it; one must let oneself go, give oneself over, abandon oneself to its duration.
(Lefebvre 2004:27)

He/she will listen to the world, and above all to what are disdainfully called noises, which are said without meaning, and to murmurs (rumeurs), full of meaning - and finally he/she will listen to silences. (Lefebvre 2004: 19)

Pictures + videos are here --->

starting a diary of personal rhythms (31.05.21)......_>>

3 words describing the day

a colour

listening sessions

coffee + breakfast talk and reflection

~pictures

for more scroll to the side ---->

day 2 (02.06) Andreas and Nathan

~rituals

listening session/ meditation

during our listening session we exercised focussing in and out of different sounds.

~activities

breakfast // improvised coffee machine
wrote software for Raspberry Pi's to log data about humidity, temperature, gas levels etc.
recorded listening session
wrote software to downsample long field recordings into data-streams / envelopes
placed speaker and mixer in 100m shooting tunnel and experimented with the delay

~ reflect

day was succesful in regards to achieving everything we wanted to achieve: getting ready to place the hardware tomorrow.
On a different note: we found ourselves getting hyped by seeing the actual data coming in. A relief after having only theorized for a while. Seeing that the concept itself is interesting to observe.
Met the director of het HEM without knowing. Found a room full of sick human dolls. Got free beers because friend of Nathan stole his bikekeys on accident

During the active listening process we realised that we were listening to the sound of buildings being made on the one hand and buildings being torn down on the other hand. In the middle of these two the birds were chirping and the HEM resides

~pictures

for more scroll to the side ---->

~ data

- https://github.com/n-marcus/SoundAsAMalleableTerrain

day 3 (03.06)

day 2 (02.06) Andreas and Nathan

~rituals

listening session / meditation

lunch sharing food

~activities

breakfast
planning the day
listening session with warming up
praxis visit for parts and design of rythmabsorbuis
lunch
rope rythm experiment
distilling data from Thessa's walk
distilling data from previous nights Pi's data
distilling wavefrom from field recording
finalizing software for Pi's
finding the magical 6 spots
loop modulation music experiment
Pi's soldering lithium batteries
rymthabsorbuis prototype assembly

~ reflect

You can use a rope as a sequencer on which to capture multiple spaces at the same time. With each change of direction you add a marker, this could become a note / trigger.
you can map this rope back to time by filming it while walking past it. Or measuring it and using it as a timeline.
Laying it in a circle or going through it intuitively.

The making and unmaking of the environment. Everyone around us is making things and this could be our internal arena.

data is beautiful

important to get a first view of how data can be transformed. after the rythmabsorbuis is completed we should try to broaden our vision again. it feel like we are making a toolbox with tools we will use in the future.
why are we trying to speed up field-recordings? are we too lazy to listen to them complete?

making the rope be a sound-gate that drips sound when a trigger is hit. switching frozen spectra every new hit

~pictures

for more scroll to the side ---->

~ data

day 4 (04.06)

~rituals

no listening session / meditation.

breakfast
lunch roti shop

~activities

breakfast
short book discussion, Figures in the Air
'awareness of alternatives' in places produced by audio
the present in relation to the past, now and future
wie gaat in de toekomst wonen? (hier)
more rope measurements of space
using the rope as a height map or performance piece
assembling obserbuis
placing obserbuis (with necessary brandnetel wounds)
exploring 50 meter tunnel with recorders
recording 50 meter tunnel with various impulse responses / sine sweeps
analysing said recordings in spectogram, video, data
experimented with FFT freezing and collecting of FFT windows
financial administration
first email to HEMterrein museum

~ reflect

we want to research deeper into the historical side of the HEM terrain. We need data from before, maps, (sound) recordings and memories of the past, stories, smells, objects. making the building daydream by replaying sound of the past in their original recording spaces.

enviro+ microphone does not work which is sad as the project is about sound, looking for replacement.

Awareness of alternatives - how to give the visitor the ability to skip through instants, both historical and present.
thinking about the ropes as drainage pipes that leak sound horizontally and vertically. every tape is a trigger that sets off a different horizontal sound. or as pipe where the triggers are the holes. switch between fft freezes / profiles on new triggers.

The tunnel has reflections that are very different dependent on where you are standing. Exciting texture and objects can be found, empty plastic bullet shells, bullets, torn cloth, broken wood, holes in rusty metal. At the end there is a weird tunnel in which you can the people above speaking.
The tunnel is so torn and beaten up, what did it look like originally? what is left of it now? What was our studio used for before?
We need a tour from an ex-employee to find out what happened here.

~ pics

~ data

day 5 (07.06)

~rituals

no listening session / meditation.

breakfast

~activities

Breakfast
Pi harvest
Change battery
Recording heipaalen
Meet René and plan new excursion
Sort through data and fix collective NAS

~ reflect

We discussed different ways the audience could interact with our current research.

Absorbing and observing rhythm of the 'heipalen'.
The workers move fluently from job to job in a choreography. They days repeat themselves in linear rhythms, but with cyclical daily changes.
The blueprint is as a score, unfolding with strong measures. The builders are improvising within a clear framework.

day 6 (09.06)

~rituals

no listening session / meditation.
Poem reading --- Look right

breakfast

~activities

coffee and leftover sandwich at Lab 44 while brainstorming about potential presentation forms. heard poem about plofbos by Andreas. decided to make a docu-film instead of a booklet. Talked about what should be in the film, Thessa is a filmcritic and so is Andreas, this means Nathan should also be one and let's all pee over the same video then.

harvested data from Absorbuis #001 but it seems corrupted...

once back in the cellar we discussed how the exposition could be a maquette of the area. see picture of 3d print on paper. talked about giving certain buildings/places a "voice" in a spacious audio visual installation. thinking about ways to interact with these voices, location tracking, distance, proximity and motion sensors.

what kind of sound will be the voice of these places? FFT analysis, granular, field recordings, rope space recording? maybe we can make all voices switch state based on audience interaction.

made a 3d mockup of the "Grey Space" to see how the map of the area might fit into the physical space.

tried FFT scanning and fast granular scanning to see how field recordings might sounds sped up / summarized.

visited metal recycling plant Overdie Zaandam to ask if we can record their precious metal clanging sounds. they are kind enough to grand us permission. we will probably go there tomorrow.

~reflect

interaction should be like a drop of water in water, not like a joystick or fader

the participant should be able to compare different places, yet they should create an ensemble together

buildings could be pedestals for artefacts both in material and sound

visual samples: simulacra

what are miminal means to give people the sense of a map or geography?

sound should be the main 'space creator': an ephemeral social architecture

'geography and climate provide vernacular keynotes to the soundscape'.

'we can construct temporary places that construct a site of dialogue between sense of self, ways of thinking, ways of being alone and ways of being together'

'audio's utility is best imagined in relation to the utility of daydreams -> a site of poly-dimensional osmosis.' -> awareness of alternatives

~Poem - Andreas Tegnander
Transcribed

Interesting solution to take the pasts mistakes and put a fence around it. Box it in and call that space inhabitable. It is toxic in its purest form. But as I am saying this I see a connection to private land. These contracts of ownership, like toxic waste it denies me access.

The forest behind the fence has a certain self-righteous glow.

The space behind is nether public nor private, but dangerous.

Architecture built with a catastrophe in mind ends up being really beautiful. The practical intentions of one generation become ornaments for the next.

As I approach the gate I see no other warning than the fact that it is locked. Why am I denied access?

Nothing feels more meaningless than the expensive Christmas gift, bought by the factory higher ups. Spending his hard earned war-tainted money on this hideous costumer idea of love and affection. The bonus check he got was an award after a productive year. He could give it all to charity and it would relieve him of nothing.

The old lamp post seems confused somehow. As if it believes that it is a tree.

(Other side in the forbidden forest)

The space changes colour, and I do not have to walk far before I come across a sign. Watch out, quick sand. It almost feels like a joke to me. Somehow I can not believe this warning. I think they are too afraid to heed the correct warning:
Watch out, remains of explosions might harm people the capital had not intended.
And instead of admitting to this very fact of danger they pull an old trick out of their sleeve. Quicksand, good old quicksand. It is a bit dated. I think if they really care they should come back every 20 years and exchange the sign with something closer to the contemporary awareness.

The trees are tall and covered in plants. They grow where they please. It is beautiful to get an insight into our future past.

This land might be made illegal for practical reason. What a lazy and wasteful solution. Maybe I´m gonna apply this technique in my own life. Whenever I make to big of a mess I will put up a big fences around it and prohibit people to go there. I´ll say... wait almost have it... YES I´ll say there is Quicksand! No-one in their wildest dreams would walk somewhere if the think there is quicksand!

- [ ] Figure out Why this fence

The abandoned toxic land. Unsure where to thread

(Back out)

The blue tarp of the abandoned building is so beautiful. The tarp has a magic glow through the dirty windows. Again what protects me takes on this unexpected beauty.

The tree is holding the sign, as if it is all a trick. Wanting us to stay out, warning us of danger.

of Toxic land. When will someone clean this up, how long will it stay like this. And what forces will motivate people to do something about it.

Common good? For profit? Maybe we forget about it. The sign falls down, and the trees grow tall.

And we forget why we should be there. Why it was dangerous at all. Again we inhabit the toxic land.

All the poles around. Pole number 48.

The community between the workers. Because it was not an attractive job they made the wages higher and gave them rights. Interesting to have this happy community as part of the ugly machinery of war.

Are they to blame for taking their chance at a good life?

The secrets and zones. Forbidden documents.

Transcribed and edited

23:30 8.06.2021

~ pics

day 7 (10.06)

~rituals

none :((( lets do a listening session now

~activities

Went to a building material sorter across the channel and went to a metal sorting company on the other side to record sounds an images (this one was the nicest, but a bit unsafe). Andreas fell!! people there were very nice though. seems like metal also sounds when it is silent. a bath tub was creaking on its side.

got mars, ice and cola from local restaurant. took ferry back to HEM

Andreas made some music from metal that sounded like the water

Nathan was trying to make the microphones work on the raspberry pis, Enviro+ built-in mic only seems to work once after rebooting. the mics we bought to use with the Enviro+ ADC seem to have a max sample rate of about 50Hz which is unusable.

~ reflection

next week we will all translate our favorite spot on the terrain into music
reinterpreting the recording sounds and data as a new sound to give these places a voice in the maquette of reality that we might make

maybe the interaction could be: in rest state the place players are just field recordings but in interaction state they become more musical

we are thinking that it might be best to stay visually minimal in the eventual work

the recordings of the scrap metal recycling place are really beautiful and will come in handy anywhere really

it is good to communicate to the places you want to record that you are not interested in hearing them tell their story but that you need peace and silence from them to record their work best. should have told Renee from the first recycling plant this.

programming is getting in the way of Nathan's creative process, hope this was the last thing before getting into concrete sounddesigning.

Trusting the sounds will enable us to trust in a visually more minimalistic approach. This was always the case, but the trust is key, as it makes sure that you only put elements in there that really matter instead of filling it up with a lot of "and this also BTW"

day 8 (11.06)

~rituals

coffee and breakfast in the morning.
extensive listening / walking / singing session in the neighboring abandoned building

~activities

Andreas and Nathan discovered open door in abandoned building and discovered the very rave-able spaces

had breakfast and coffee, talked for a long time about girlfriends and cancer research

looked at the data from the pi that was in the tunnel yesternight

went to abandoned building and did listening / singing / walking exercises for a long time. Came back and chose the places to put Pi's at.

had lunch at fries place

came back for musical jam

issues with copying Raspberry Pi images to other SD cards but might have succeeded in coupling one

placed first Pi in exposition space

~ reflection

improvisation can also be a way to give voice to a space, we can also freestyle and make music freely based on those spaces.

also improvising voice and body in a chosen space might be a good interpretational technique in order to make a space audible.

singing together is really nice

nobody cares when you break into an exhibition with the right coffee cups

day 9 (15.06)

~rituals

coffee and breakfast in the morning.
listened to each others first Rythm Destilation Method (RDM) experiments

~ activities

started with breakfast

collected the pi's that were left over the weekend

separated and each went to our favorite spots to make some RDM experiments.

met back for lunch and discussed how we would meet with the HEM brug terrein museum.

met up with HEM brug terrein museum and discussed how we could access their archives

set up speakers in the Gray Space to listen to each others RDM compositions.

listened to each other's compositions

~ reflections

to crossfade or not to crossfade between RDM's, that is the question? Both have musical qualities but are we going for musical or raw data scientifical?

speeding up long field recordings using different techniques (FFT, Granulair, raw with pitching, transient detection) reveals hidden patterns and pitches.
while speeding up some of the samples some of the sounds that seemed constant we discovered are falling and rising in pitch over time (and inaudible in real-time)

there is so much reverb in the Gray Space, we cannot afford to have 6 different sound sources playing at the same time. This will result in kakaphony.

the heipalen are hearable everywhere and almost always. this is sickening but we cannot ignore this fact.

(Church)bells are given a legato phrasing which wind currents or water will modulate dynamically. -> The distance + the landscape makes them sound better.

The bell is also an acoustical calendar

~rituals

coffee and breakfast in the morning.
listened to each others first Rythm Destilation Method (RDM) experiments

day 10 (16.06)

~rituals

coffee + listening session

~ activities

tested Nathan's sensor, it didn't work. connected movement sensor to Ableton live but not great at all bc, it's very binary.

Nathan made data to LFO converter in Max4 live, very nice, to hook up to anything basically.

Gathered data from the 'betonnen vierkant area'.

celebrated Thessa's birthday ~~~

~ reflection

nothing is every as easy as it seems especially when it comes to technology.

rhythms are easily distilled from the raspberrypi data: they are also always changing.

the birds only start to sing when the machines stop working.

~ data

day 11 (17.06)

~rituals

walk in het plofbos + recording
afternoon nap by thessa

~ activities

created guidelines for which rhythms to use, how objective they should be and which materials (sound source) they can use to produce themselves: we will use 6 places, 6's RDM's (rhythm destillation methods) and various sound sources connected to the place itself.

created a ?manifesto? with composition methods so we stay through to the real rhythms of the terrain

brainstorm about the form of the presentation in relation to the space: maybe there should be 2 knobs, one for spaces and one for RDM, so the visitor can make the music themselves.

Andreas made an rms sample oscillator and wavetable synthesis engine

Nathan experimented with sped up recordings.

Used the data to LFO converter on field recordings = nice

Made a prototype for the knobs trough midi controller (Nathan)

Recording in het plofbos + hike

~ reflection

the interaction can not be to difficult, given the time we have we should find something simple and effective

the grey space has a lot of reverberation, we have to watch out for a cacophony

a man with a jackhammer is imperialistic because he has the power to interrupt and dominate other acoustic activities in the vicinity.

day 12 (21.06)

~rituals

cleaning

~ activities

tried various combinations of RDM's and sound materials for 3 different places
Tried Crossfader to

recorded a long take from 'het betonnen vierkant'

Made RMS to LFO.wav device
Made RMS-LFO for Ableton mapping

~ reflection

FFT Smear modulated (volume) by amplitude is sound very interesting.
Granular beats + FFT Smear also.
Drum to midi (with modulatable note length and fft pathways also nice.

Firefighters on the terrain used something called 'de knetterbox' to simulate fires, beautifull word.

The RMS data creates interesting Wavetables and lfo movement. There seems like we are going to aim wide and research a lot of ways and then decide what will be displayed rather than already pinning it down.

The research will take on a very iterative phase from now on. Try - see - change.

We all agree that quality of output is very important. Good concept with bad sound will get tossed away.

day 13 (22.06)

~ rituals

coffee

cookies

music listening

walk over the terrain

~ activities

talk with Orpheu
realized we can't use the Grey Space

made impulse responses of empty warehouse with a lot of water in it

Talked a lot about how to proceed now that we are not using the Grey Space anymore. but maybe we are going to use the Dark Space now instead?

recorded 30min in the Projectiel Draaierij

~ reflections

Look for beautiful data first, then sonify in a language
make the data clear in the sonification

where are we in time, how can you show this? do we want to show this?

we can also turn it around, give every sound generation technique a speaker in space instead of a speaker per place.

using the same sound generation technique per place makes it easy to compare different places.

short sounds followed by silence work best in the larger spaces

why are we speeding everything up, to show larger rhythm

maybe something harmonic after all?

day 14 (22.06)

~ rituals

reading written text to the group
daily conceptual discussion

pizza + beers

~ activities

thessa recorded wind through grass stroking on metal with contact mics

long conceptual discussion

made new rdm's and set up crossfader for the first test

did a first user test with Lorena for the 'playing spaces and rdms'

went out for fieldrecordings in the evening, very different sound of the terrain
made an improv instrument with a pile of sand and stones and a broken fence ~ v seismological

~ reflection

maybe interaction is not the way to go after all, we need to create more of a story and more molding of sounds

we need to filter out the best sounds and find more beautiful sounds

scientificness vs impressionism was an intense debate, they need to work well together

we could distill rhythms from how objects are organized in space, or not? ~ their distance takes as long as our steps

'the town played melody'

the heipalen could be the conductor/vibrator of all the other sounds and spaces:
at it's lowest activity all natural sound gets more space, at it's highest activity all spaces start vibrating with it, same goes for our bodies

heipalen could be archeologists as well, they dig through earth layers

one should hear one space at a time, else it becomes to muddy

where is the organicness in all this, is everything really as industrial as it seems. where is the smoothness and morphing ~ everything still sounds to much like ableton, too simplified

day 14 (23.06)

day 15 (29.06)

~ rituals

meeting with Orpheu, meeting with Rieke
showed day's progress to each other

~ activities

meeting with Orhpeu
made new RDM's for projectiel draaierij
made contact-mic recordings and videos
organized all field recordings in folders and named them properly, made a system with data place, recorder etc.
made screenshots and recordings of spectograms
recorded the rubbing of two road parts with contact mic
recorded the rain for 8 min
made a tryout video for the presentation

~ reflection

we don't have enough long recordings (30m+)

the metal scrap has very interesting sounds that need to be looked at more.

recordings we made last time are pretty nice

different actors could form a rhythmic cycle in combination with the video

piles of sand and gravel lay motionless, although the next day they will extend or displace again.

....typifies the greater aggressiveness of a time in which objects were punched and beaten into existence by means of industrial processes material had once been stroked, carved or kneaded into shape, now it was slugged

objects as time / rhythm containers

day 16 (30.06)

~ rituals

?none? moved our studio into a little room to reassemble later

~ activities

T made RDM's from 'aardplaten' , rain on plastic bag and wind trough grass.

A & T played the RDM's on a mixer to create an on the fly composition, interesting

Harvested a 24h long recording from the apartments window

~ reflection

fast crossfade's between RDM's creates a sense of closeness, malleableness, texure, morphology, seismology, terra-scaping. Looking at time more zoomed in or compressed.

slow crossfade's give more of a filmic feeling, from far away, looking at the terrain from above, looking at time more zoomed out, uncompressed.

the soundscape is a field of interactions

any classification (we are classifying sounds sometimes?) system is surrealistic, for surrealistic art also depends on bringing together incongruous or anachronistic facts, which somehow snap together to illuminate new relationships

only through representations formed mentally, that function as a basis for memory, comparison, grouping, variation and intelligibility a soundscape can be understood

day 17 (06.07)

~ rituals

coffee, long discussion

~ activities

had a long discussion about how the final work would practically be, made a planning and to do and shopping list

started with jam sessions with RDMs

Andreas set up camera for 16 hour recording onto the water

Thessa and Nathan started working on making pieces for the final composition. One of the nocturnal soundscape and one for the dawn and start of the day.
Listened to pieces together

made a timeline for the final composition so we can start filling in the pieces

wrote the text for in the papers etc.

~ reflection

The soundscape is a field of interaction.

time is getting tighter

we can zoom in and out of time for the final composition

what works is when the sounds are in continuous state of morphing.

we can use soundmarks to indicate changes in the timelines

Time does not pass us by without recognition. Existing includes a steady wear and tear, and will sand away all that we rise above its surface. A mountain of warning signs will eventually become a sea of dust. And here we will rises another sign, warning of quick-sand

Nathan:

Us against the endless drumming of the heipalen. Thumbing their way in the earth without regard of what earth they're drilling through. The terrain can only exist peacefully outside of working hours. The terrain is not living a 7 to 4 but a 4 to 7.
The birds only sing when the poles don't ring
We try to find the sound of the terrain but only hear the endless ticking
Im really fucking sick of heipalen

day 18 (07.07)

~ rituals

coffee, long discussion

~ rituals

coffee

~ activities

met with Jan to discuss the publication

talked a lot about contracts and business

mailed Orpheu with part list

worked further on pieces of the compositio

set up camera for another timelapse out of the window of the museum and onto the water

listened to each others sound design for today

~ reflections

it works when multiple temporalities follow each other

focus on one sound at a time

we are using the sounds maybe more freely than we thought before

the look of waves in a river in a timelapse look good and might be used as a seperate RDM later on.

day 19 (08.07)

~ rituals

coffee

covid test

roti on the corner (spice test, all ded)

~ activities

timelapse recovery from musem (2nd)
thessa recorded organic contact mic sound
worked on compositions based on feedback session from yesterday and sound design more, showed each other progress and constructive feedback

convolved

edited timelapse, saw GPU die on the spot.
edited granular samples

droplets on leaves rdm + convolution with sound of a pipe making the spaces merge industrially and organic - twilight zone in the prullenbak

~ reflections

take time

morph the perception of time and space, go in slow motion and move underground and back again
where are we?
don't stay static

morph morph
we are working and making progress, the thinking has been done and now it is being executed.

the spice experiment

day 19 (08.07)

day 20 (13.07)

~ rituals

coffee

lunch

~ activities

worked on composition a lot

updated administration

did production preperations

talked with Jan about design for flyer folder handout

listened to Sim City music

updated text for publication and made definitions for flyer

~ reflections
how poetic should the flyer be? do we use gridlines or not?

how do we tell a story with all of our field-recordings?

keep it fresh, keep it mint keep the highs in place and pumping

make a narrative

it was a peaceful day

Sim City is also a terrascaping game, isn't everything just a reaction to our youth in a big nostalgic movement?

in the end don't we all wanna go back to our childhoods?

day 20 (13.07)

day 21 (14.07)

~ activities

picked up speakers from Andreas's studio

worked on composition more
installed multi-speaker installation

tested multispeaker installation

finalized folder, meeting with Jan

selected footage for final video

looked at equipment with Joanie

looked into renting computer and pillows

spatialized composition

made floorplan

~ reflections

with little adjustments the sound becomes very spatial

we can experiment with different ways of making sound move across the space but just assigning parts of the composition to different speakers already works pretty good

everything is coming together
if only we could start setting up in the dark room already
our hands are itching with desire to make it happen

every reflection implies a doubling of the sound by its own ghost, hidden on the other side of the reflecting surface.
this world of alter-egos, following and pacing the real world an instant later, mocking its follies.

a composure owes it to the cricket to know why it sings. craftsmanship is knowing all about the material one works with. here is where the composer becomes biologist, physiologist - himself cricket.

day 21 (14.07)

~ activities

moved to utrecht / knutselkamer

had zoom meeting for composition progress

got soundcard from studio cause I forget it in Zaandam

did lots of compositional work, perfected the compositions, had feedback session

organized ableton porjects and sorted tracks by position in space with color coding

day 22 (15.07)

~ rituals

none, lots of coffee (personally)
petting the dog

~ reflections

allow the composition to take side tracks
leave space for organicnes within the mechanicality of the composition.
how much do you make it a composition / track and how much do we keep it a sound-collage?

how do we find the right balance between this?

is it dense or is it sparse?

is there a tension curve or is it a static movement?

the compositions of the three of us really sound like they come from the same place (which they do) this will make it easy to fade between them in the final composition.

easter egg: you can render your whole composition and speed it up to get a whoosh version of your original song

you can also make more RDM's from existing compositions

terrain as a malleable human

day 23 (19.07)

~ activities

moved lights from utrecht to zaandam

installed lights in the darkroom

installed speakers in the darkroom

placed speakers and artifacts throughout the dark room

picked color for the LEDs

picked out senteces to be in the video

picked out shots to be in the video

arranged all compositions together

roti shop was closed so groceries it was

~ reflections

time is almost up

we need to make real choices now

we need to choose the video material now and it is hard to know what to show because we have so much cool stuff

Thessa finished reading the Soundscape and started The Ocean of Sound

the space sounds really nice, the reverb can work well for us

how fast should the video be?

thessa liked the project and amused herself

had deep car conversation

it is really nice to finally be working in the space we will be exhibiting in.

~ rituals

the alarm in the museum went of again

day 24 (20.07)

~ rituals

broodje @ hornbach
insomnia
5 am email

~ activities

finalized the speaker setup
imported our compositions into the template
mapped the led lights to video
finished installing the lights
cable's GONE

started spatializing the sound

instagram post

~ reflections

Maybe we should leave stuff out, the music is strong on its own. We don't have to show everything we did.

Lights are better when not static, we can map different parts of the composition to different video's

exit signs are annoying

tomorrow clean & spatialize/finalize

how dynamic should he light system be

day 24 (20.07)

day 25 (21.07)

~ rituals

coffee
stealing stones

~ activities

really finished the speaker setup

tied all the cables and taped them

moved the mac to a non-visible place

finalized compositions

replaced TV

received flyers (they are pretty)

did a complete listen-through of all the pieces and liked it

soldered broken cables

decided not to use the led system nathan installed with pain in his head and hair yesterday :'(

absorbuis will also not be shown

~ reflections

everything together creates a whole new narrative

implicitly everything connects to each other

everything looks nicer when you tidy up a bit

spacious sound works really well, but sometimes you can hear the LFO's zooming around

most of the time, less is more

it is pretty chill to be alone in a museum

it is pretty hard to mix for multiple speakers while only really hearing 1 or 2

the dark gives more space to listen