06_Just wanna to......

Things go too far.

After completing the sculpture, I have reviewed the sounds I am going to insert. I cannot convince myself on many points. Even through I have mentioned many reasons in my research theoretical text, I get struck on my idea.

Why I need to place them in such a situation? Does the setting has any meaning? What is the relationship between the audiences and the sounds? If it is creating an experience, what is my objectives? How can I connect the audiences' activities with the sounds?

In the research theoretical text, I mentioned Pierre Schaeffer's sound object theory, a mode of listening that points sounds' own existence. Under this theory, making sounds becomes more unidentifiable is a good way to present this theory. I have made a short discussion with my friend. He thought sound object theory's power is on the musical aspect. Separating the sounds with their sound sources, it seems like the sound  from the instrument. From his point of view, sound object is telling the potential of the sounds, which can be music materials. After the discussion, whether sound object widens people's imagination on water pipes become my main question.

I am going to a wrong direction. I present my insight on the theory without any good solution. One of my ideas is the lack of starting points for the audiences to listen. In front of some "unfamiliar" sounds,  they do reject to listen and ignore the musical qualities, like the daily sounds we used to ignore. In spite of the inefficiency in practicing  the theory, it does not mean Pierre Schaeffer is
wrong. Sounds are real object. They have no agency and life. They are passive and depend on people's usage and response. Let take listening as an example. Some may think of its source while some may focus on its rhythm. It is free for us to choose the mode of listening because sound itself has no hint on the suitable mode of listening.

The environment I create does not promote any mode of listening. Audiences cannot learn to listen through the irregular water pipe sculpture. Moreover, the reduced listening is not the things I want to emphasize in my work. I just want to challenge people's perception on objects. To widen their imagination is the only thing I need to do. Suspect, I have stated in the text, is my approach to the objective. I increase more "identifiable" sounds, which have different relationships with water pipes and the work form. They present my fantasy on water pipes. They are also a good reminder that imply the rule in my work: All sounds have variable linkages with the object. With the "identifiable" sounds, "unidentifiable sounds" become a guess which encourages people think more on the object.

I don't know whether it is the best solution, but this change indeed is the strongest reason to convince myself.

Just wanna to make changes.

05_Research Theoretical Text

Sound Flow (2011)

Sound Flow is a sound installation which creates a special hearing situation. A sculpture, made by water pipes, is constructed in a dark area. Eight sound recordings, related to the water pipes, are played in loop inside the sculpture. Without any lighting, viewers can only touch, find the distributed holes on the sculpture and listen to them. A sudden water sound will flow in a particular direction, which provides a spatial hint for the viewers.

The work challenges the viewers’ perceptual experience by appropriation, separation and combination on objects and sounds. The notions of reading things and listening sounds are being discussed. It provides more points of view and makes viewers look at things in different ways.

Re-appropriation of objects

In the very beginning, I had not focus on any object. What I only knew was my passion in choosing installation as the medium of my Final Year Project. I wanted to examine myself in using a medium, which I had learnt in my three-year studying.

Installation is an important movement in contemporary art, which indicates a start of using found objects in the artwork. Artists’ craftsmanship is no longer an essential element in art. Artists can express their idea and thought by installing found objects in different ways. The meanings of the objects are changed by their creative activities.

Different with the art pieces made by the artists, found objects are created by others. They originally contain many meanings. In “Reading things: the alibi of use”, Neil Cummings mentioned different conventional frames of reading things. Like the material culture, it states social and cultural attitudes. Advertising, the strategies of consumption and the projected desire of the targeted consumers can be involved in its discussion. Looking at its representation, it becomes an indicator to individuals’ thought. Taking it as the commodity, it connects to the field of ideology, that an economic or political system is based on.[1]

From Cummings’s point of view, these approaches on reading things narrow the rich lives of the objects. He encourages people to discover more lives of the objects. Users can personalize the objects and seek for their possibilities while the viewers can take a momentary snap shot by looking at their actual uses.

The concept raises a further discussion in reading art object. Art object’s representational hegemony takes psychological investment in material things as an important issue. The viewers only look for the artists’ psychology from the artwork’s representation. It ignores the field of the audiences: how they think and use the object. Cummings’s theory shifts our attention from the dominated messages from the artists back towards the users’ responses.

Cumming provides some suggestions for the viewers and users. How the producers embody his concept has not been mentioned in the reading. Sound Flow intends to supplement the theory through giving expression to two roles: users and producers.

In the sense of users, the work re-appropriates the found object, water pipes. A common household setting is transformed into a sculpture. It can be touched, wandered and listened, instead of located in some hidden places. Moreover, the water pipes convert sounds, instead of the water. This inversion on the proper usages brings much surprise at hearing. The mechanism of the water pipes makes the sounds played with a special feedback. And the connection of the sculpture leads the collision among different sounds. The small holes are distributed on the whole sculpture. Holes at different positions present different spatial effect. Water pipes enrich the hearing experience. The work creates more meanings to the object. It steps into the producers and designers’ place and make changes on their creation.

Creating a situation

Based on the concept of unlocking the potentials of the found object, Sound Flow avoids using it as the tool to express any message which is unrelated to the object. It aims at highlight the presence of the water pipes. Their materiality, structure and mechanism are being emphasised. The meaning of the work is the object itself. Found objects are not passive carriers of meanings in the work. How the work shows the existence of the object has been mentioned in the last paragraph. And I do not repeat the content once again.

Except its focus, Sound Flow leaves much room for the viewers’ interpretation. Unlike the untouchable works, viewers’ participation is an essential part for the work. Audiences are required to explore the created environment. Irregular-shaped sculpture by water pipes and fittings is constructed in the dark area. Viewers do not know the whole picture of it. They can only rely on their sense of touch and hearing to recognize the place. Viewers touch, find the distributed holes on the sculpture and listen to them. Eight speakers, hided in the different positions of the sculpture, play the sound recordings in loop. Without any starting and ending point, different audiences may generate different versions. In each ten minutes, the water sound will be played from the speakers one by one according to the planned flowing direction. It intends to pretend a water flow, which gives a hint for the audiences on the spatial design. Suspect is one of the attractions in the work. Audiences’ unknown on its whole picture with some hints in answering their questions. It widens their imagination on the space, which enhances a more personal experience. Also, many variable factors assists in making the experience more and more personal, such as the audiences’ paths, positions, speed, location, the duration of hearing, etc. Everyone can have their own tastes in the work.   

Audiences are the viewers and users. According to Cummings’s idea, how they can response to the work? As a viewer, s/he can view how the others undergo the created situation in the work. As a user, they can engage in the adventure and seek for the possibilities of using. To conclude Cummings’s idea, every usage is a re-made of the meaning of objects. The boundary between the users and producers becomes blurrier. Sound Flow experiments in importing the concept during the stage of production. I am really curious of what audiences perceive from this created situation.

Separation of sound object  

Before moving on to the field of sound making, I would like to continue the topic we have talked over. As mentioned, Sound Flow highlights the presence of the water pipes. And there are many strategies to present its existence, such as the sculpture, dark area and sounds played inside the sculpture. In order to take another look on water pipes, sound recordings which relate to them will be included in the work. They are played in the distributed hidden speakers. And they have different relationships with the water pipes. Some are recorded from the water pipe while some challenge its definitions. The exact relationship between the water pipes and the sound recordings is not disclosed to the audience so that they can be more questionable. There are three types of relationships between the recordings and the water pipes. 

1. Location recordings with the water pipes

In our daily life, water pipes are the connection among different spaces. I would like to include this feature in the work, so I made a few recordings in different locations. I hided the microphone in the water pipes and recorded the sound. To my surprise, the recordings have a new appearance due to the feedback generated from the water pipes. These location recordings become more difficult to identify.            

2. Challenges on the definitions of water pipes

     Phenomenology approach assists the discussion on the notion of water pipes. It is based on the study of human experience in which considerations of objective reality are not taken into account.[2] There are two recordings questioning the definition of the water pipes. One is based on its feature of converting water. A straw is same with the water pipes on this point. And I made a recording on using straws. Another takes our common hearing from the water pipes as the topic. Some Chinese words for describing the water sound were spoken from the pipes. It aimed at pretending the sound of water pipes. 

3. Actual usages of the water pipes

Three recordings are presenting the actual usages of the object. One of the recordings is a melody which is played by the instrument made by water pipes from a Taiwan musician. The others are some creative practices of the water pipes by two different people.

I am also response to the sound mixing and arrangement, because I want to make it more ambiguous and unfamiliar with its sound source. It refers to Pierre Schaeffer’s acousmatic listening, a way that hearing the sound without seeing the causes behind it. This listening method reduces sounds to the field of hearing alone. From Schaffer’s point of view, the attention on the sound sources locks the potential of the musical qualities, such as frequency, levels and time. To extract its musical potentials, visual and audio cues are needed to separate. All physical, cultural and psychological references and indexes are needed to disconnect with the sound.

It is no doubt that Schaeffer’s concept goes beyond human’s general listening habit. We have no ear lids. We are condemned to listen. It is our inherent ability in linking the aural with our visual. Even though we hear sounds without sense of seeing, we may imagine the physical object that causes the auditory perception. It is uneasy to transform into the acousmatic listening. Only when making the recording more unfamiliar, the viewers then can give up in looking for its sound source. Due to the emphasis on the separation of sound from its source, it is no need to think of the objectivity of sounds. In this sense, it is sensible for me to rearrange the sound freely.

Environment is a key factor which affects the hearing experience. I put the sound sculpture in the dark area. The dark area ignores viewers’ visual. It makes them more concentrate on the sounds. Also, through the elimination of the visual, it lets audiences forget the object of generating sounds. Not only the sound source, but also the device of playing sounds is unidentified. Audiences have no visual basis for them to associate.

Schaeffer’s concept on acousmatic listening shifts the focus on the perceptual realities to another extreme: conceptual speculation. For me, it transformed the usual mode of listening into another mode of listening. It only indicates a new way of experience, but not an open-up of their potentials. Can we keep its literal as well as musical qualities at the same time? We imply an invisible relationship in recordings while we make it difficult to recognize. Sound Flow experiment this idea. It played the sounds with giving a hint that the sound recordings have some unknown relationships with the water pipes. Through giving some basis for their imagination, it can provide much suspect for the audiences to guess. They are no longer in front of the alienated sounds with no way. Also, guessing raises their awareness in hearing sounds’ tiny elements, such as timbre, space and so on.

Combination of the objects and sounds

     Sound Flow is creating a special hearing environment. The concept of reading things and listening sounds are the two main issues of the work. Although they are related to the different concepts, they have a correlation with each other. Sound becomes a new content of the object. It assists in highlighting its features. Without sound, the object’s mechanisms, structure and fabric cannot be shown in the work. On the other hand, the object offers some extraordinary condition for playing sounds. Sounds have a new life in the work. Through installing the speakers in the sculpture by water pipes, the sounds perform with feedback. The total connection of the sculpture also give sounds a chance to crashes with others.

     The artificial water sound flow among the water pipes makes a closer linkage between sounds and the object – water pipes. At this time, sounds are aiming at drawing a whole picture of the sculpture. They become more active to represent the presence of the object. A spatial environment constructed by the objects offers a relationship among the speakers.

     This theoretical text focuses on the discussions on the project idea. It has not mentioned any production process and technical researches. They have been released in the website of my final year project.

_____________________________________________________________________

References:

Neil Cummings (1993), Reading things, Reading things: The alibi of use, Chance Books, London

Murray Schafer (2004), Open Ears, The Auditory Culture Reader, Oxford, New York

Vic Seidler (2004), The Auditory Culture Reader, Diasporic Sounds: Dis/Located Sounds, New York

R. Murray Schafer (1994), The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World, Chapter 1-2, Destiny Books, New York

Andrews Bick (2008), Silent Listening, web materials

http://silentlistening .wordpress.com/2008/

---

[1] Google dictionary: ideology

[2] Word Net Search: phenomenology

04_Making of

Today I started working on the setting. The first step is to construct a room in the presentation space. Thanks to my dad and his friend, they set a 8ft* 6ft room for my work. Due to the lack of the budget, the room has no ceiling and no decoration on its outlook. To provide a dark area, I will switch off the lights during my presentation. 

It was hard to install the water pipes in the room. In a proper way, people use glue to fix the pipes and the fittings. However, I could not. I planned to hide the speakers and the cables in the sculpture. Without the glue, the pipes did not keep a fix position for a long time. And I needed to fix the previous part and add the new one at the same time on my own. It was a "mission impossible" for me. I just finished a 1/3 part for almost four hours.

Luckily, my dad came and helped me to hold the pipes. Then I could add them, instead of keeping adjustment on the "naughty" pipes. At the end, I could finish it on schedule. 

Now I can move on to the next step: Audio interface, cables and speakers. Yeahhhhh

Special Thanks to my dad and Uncle Lung

The lock of the room

I started installing the water pipes in the room

No decoration on the outlook  

Messy room

 1:12 model 

Butterflies will leave in the end of April

03_Working Process

1. Modeling of the sculpture

Version One

This is the first version of my sculpture. It consists of two pieces.The free-standing sculpture has irregular shape. It provides many paths for the viewers. Water pipes, in this work, aim at presenting their aesthetic. The work makes change on the household setting into an artwork, which allows people to touch, feel and listen. The conventional points of view on water pipes, such as hidden in the setting, dirty and so on, are being inversed  in this project.    


Vision Two

In the first draft of the sculpture, I do have a strong feeling in insufficiency in the work. Frankly, I do not know what is the lack. Putting it in a dark room may be the solution.


The second version of the sculpture was built in the room. Without any lighting, it invites others to touch and guess its whole picture. For me, it is another way to present the object. It does not only rely on the sense of seeing. The new version keeps its irregular shape. Due to the location it is in, it is not free standing and has no water pipes on the floor.


*****The latest version will be shown  




*Theoretical Research

" Sound Flow is a sound installation which creates a special hearing situation. A sculpture, made by water pipes, is constructed in a dark area. Eight sound recordings, related to the water pipes, are played in loop inside the sculpture. Without any lighting, viewers can only touch, find the distributed holes on the sculpture and listen to them. A sudden water sound will flow in a particular direction, which provides a spatial hint for the viewers.

The work challenges the viewers’ perceptual experience by appropriation, separation and combination on objects and sounds. The notions of reading things and listening sounds are being discussed. It provides more points of view and makes viewers look at things in different ways."                                                                    

  --- from Research theoretical text of Sound Flow

I have finished a research theoretical text. It focused on a discussion on the features of my work. Why do I need to put the sound in this situation? Why do I use the object in this way? What are the objectives of my work? What is the things the audience can get after entering into the room?


References: 


Neil Cummings (1993), Reading things, Reading things: The alibi of use, Chance Books, London


Murray Schafer (2004), Open Ears, The Auditory Culture Reader, Oxford, New York


Vic Seidler (2004), The Auditory Culture Reader, Diasporic Sounds: Dis/Located Sounds, New York


R. Murray Schafer (1994), The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World, Chapter 1-2, Destiny Books, New York

Andrews Bick (2008), Silent Listening, web materials

http://silentlistening .wordpress.com/2008/ 

* Technical research

Research on amplifiers

Thanks Tiffany. She gives a useful graph to me. I can make the amplifiers on my own now:)

Research on the materials

02_Inspiration

It is about how I get start of my Final Year Project.

* Looking for my concerned area from my previous works

The Invisible Tart (grouped work) (2009)
Pie and Tart (Irene Chan// Doris Poon// P Lam// Shawn Wong)

"What we perceive is usually not what reality is. 


In this performance, acoustic sound is distorted and transformed through the receivers. The unexpected outcome causes the audiences to ponder on their perception ."

In the radio world, every electronic object has its own sound. Through the radio receivers, we can perceive this isolated world. With our combination, objects become a choir and present an audio spectacle.

I felt very excited when I was doing this project. And I do want to continue my exploration in objects.

Our portraits (2009)

"Our portrait is a photography project which captures the belongings of females in different ages. The photographs leave lots of rooms for the viewers' interpretation. What the viewers generate is the most interesting thing for me. "

Behind the objects, there are many meanings. The time you read the meaning is also the time you read yourself. What is the thing you are curious the most shows your concern, interest and thought.

This project lets me understand the power of objects. Putting them into different frames can have different meanings. In this sense, our involvement is an re-discovery of the objects. It increases my insistence in doing a project about things.

* Inspiration from Silence One

Paul Plamper: SILENCE 1
ZKM Museum (Germany)

I saw the work in my Germany Study Tour. It is a sound installation, filled by the empty tables and the chairs. On each table, there are the speakers which plays the script from one person. It pretends to be a scene in the restaurant, where different people are talking and having food.

Viewers can take part in the installation by sitting on the chairs and listening the dialogues. Different tables have different dialogues, such as the couples, the family and the friends. The whole discussion is looped and runs for about five minutes with a sudden silence. (but the dialogues are in German and I cannot understand the story:( )

By the way, it is a very interesting experience to listen the story. Sitting in one of the tables likes being the victim to witness the story (in spite of nothing happened in reality). And you can hear the sound from the other tables. The distance of sound makes you feel like the one in the restaurant. The sudden silence creates a climax in the story. And it also highlights the start and the end of the story.

It succeeds in telling the story in the setting, but it cannot satisfy me with the only story it tells. It makes me start thinking of the possibilities of making a situation.

* Inspiration from Physics Textbook for Taipei secondary students

Different subjects and streams provide different points of view for us. To see the relationship between the objects and the world, Physics is a good starting point. I went to the public library and read the Physics books for dummies.

 One of the experiments mentioned in a Physics Textbook for Taipei secondary students inspired my idea of Final Year Project. The experiment is about the wavelength of sounds. Students are required to listen the sound from the PVC water pipes.

The concept of putting sounds in a special situation attracted me a lot, so I made up my mind in  the project 's direction.  

* Thoughts and ideas of the object 

To explore my insight on objects, I started taking photos on them. And I found the relationship between the object and human is the area I concern the most. I like taking the photographs on the objects, especially some special usage which differentiate with the proper usage.

An object contains different meanings for different people. It depends on many things. Education, observation, values, beliefs, memories, past experience and you name it! In our daily life, many places work for inserting the relationship with objects to human. Like museum, it is a place where indicates the relationship through telling an only story and providing related information. 

For me, it is a domination. Viewers' interpretation are affected by the information they provide. I want to make changes and widen the possibilities. Therefore, I create a situation or environment , instead of presenting the only story. People can wander around and listen different recordings in the distributed holes . How they react affect the content they can listen. 

00_Getting Start

This is the first entry of my FYP documentation.

I keep it in here because I want to show the process. What is the beginning of my work? What I have encountered? Have I achieved the goals?

Recently, I feel really tired. Many problems are needed to solve. The deadline gets closer. And I still fight for the production and technical problems.

This text reminds me how far I have gone. I am not alone during these days. Many friends have helped me a lot. Do my best is my only response.

Hang in here, Doris.

(On 27 May 2011)

Title:
Story from a water pipe

Objectives:
want to play a narrative game with objects

Abstract:
"Story from a water pipe" is an installation, constructed by water pipes. And many small speakers are located in different areas around the whole work, which play recordings from different people.

Viewers can wander around the work and listen to the script. It provides a special experience for viewers to understand a story.

Advisor:
Dr. Linda Lai

Reference:
1. Reading things: The alibi of use (by Neil Cummings)
2. Appropriating the state on the council estate (by Daniel Miller)

Suggested Tagging:
Narrative Game// Installation//

01_Proposal

SM 4140 Graduation Thesis
Poon Wan Yi Doris 51468942

Title

Sound Flow


Category

Sound Installation

Adviser

Dr. Linda Lai 

Introduction

"Sound Flow" is a sound installation. And it is a sculpture with eight hidden speakers. Constructed by the water pipes and the fittings, different sounds are converted in the sculpture. With the mechanisms of the material, it creates a particularly spatial sound effect. Audiences can wander around and listen to the sounds in different locations.

Played sounds are related to the pipes. With the different generating methods, the work expresses new points of view and makes audiences look at the object in the different way.


Objectives

This project is based on my personal interest on objects.

For me, objects have different meanings to the people. The relationship between the object and the people depends on the experience. How you experience can affect people's imagination and notion on the objects.

Creating a new experience is the key to make changes on the objects. I want to take this project as the beginning to make people to think of the objects.


Theoretical Research

In order to have a deeper understanding on objects, I am going to review some related theories. The theories offer more possibilities of viewing objects. "Reading things: The alibi of use" by Neil Cummings encourages people to look at the objects' real usages, instead of the proper one. It mentioned one of the common perspectives on viewing things - Representational Hegemony, which suggests people focusing on its representation and think of the designers and producers' idea and thought. Cummings condemned the objects presented to their fate as sign. The real usages are users' responses. Therefore, it is important that we re-appropriate the objects to express ourselves.

The project is a sound sculpture. Different sounds will be played in loop. They are related to the object, water pipes. Putting the related sounds into the work aims to present the object in a different way. To have a more complete inversion, audience need to have a new kind of perception. Pierre Schaeffer 's Sound Object offers us a solution. It suggests people taking the recording as a individual sound piece, instead of thinking the sound sources. Through the "acousmatic listening", viewers can go beyond the usage to the other aspects.

To sum up, my research focuses on the perception of viewing things. It provide a thorough picture for me to review my proposal in creating a new experience.


Technical Research

I have made some research on the material. I used the grey water pipes, which are mainly for sewage disposal. It is because its weight is lighter than the PVC white one. And it is easy for me to make a free-standing sculpture.  Water pipes are joint by the fittings. There are wide ranges of angles. And I can create irregular shape without other materials.

For the audio part, I will use Max MSP as the controlling program and FirePod as the interface. FirePod consists of 8 outputs, so the maximum of the speakers are 8. I will place the speaker in the different point of the sculpture. Due to size of the speakers, I will made the speakers on my own.


Schedule

Feb
1st Proposal

Mar
Research
Final Proposal

Apr
Production

Apr 18
Research Theoretical Text Submission

Apr 29
Presentation