Edwin van der Heide
2004
General
The
Son-O-House's generative and reactive sound environment is developed by the
composer and media artist Edwin van der Heide. The aim of the sound environment
is to create a permanent interaction between the sound, the architecture and
the visitors. The sound intents to influence and interfere with the perception
and the movements of the visitors. The presence, activity and the approximate
location of the visitors is being detected by sensors placed in the
building. This information is continuously analyzed and quantified. The output
of the analysis is used to control the nature of the sound and therefore
challenges the visitors to re-interpret their relationship with the
environment. The result is a complex feedback system in which the visitor
becomes a participant.
The Sound
Environment
The Son-O-House
is equipped with 20 speakers. They can be be used with two different
approaches. First of all they can all be used individually. The sounds will be
clearly perceived from the direction of the corresponding speaker. With the
second approach the 20 speakers are divided in five overlapping 'sound fields'.
Each field consists of 4 individual speakers. The sounds produced by the
speakers are designed in such a way that they interfere with each other in the
space. Therefore the sounds are not perceived from the location of the
individual speakers but surround the visitors in the space. The interferences
of the sounds produced by the speakers in one field can either be static or
dynamic resulting in movement in the space.
All of the sound
is synthesised in real-time.
Composition
The sound
environment of the Son-O-House is not a musical composition in the traditional
sense. The goal is to have a continuous developing environment that challenges
the visitors to come back, perceive the new musical state and then relate and
interact themselves with it again.
For the opening
of the building the sound environment doesn't contain any prepared sounds. The
system consists of rules and conditions that produce parameters of the sounds.
The system is therefore generating it's own sounds in real-time. The sound
fields transform within themselves depending on the activity of the visitors
inside of the field. On a higher level of composition the sounds fields can be
swapped with each other in space and time.
The effect of a
current sound can be measured by using the sensor input and analyze the relation of one location to
another location. The results are stored in a growing data base. Previously
generated sounds can be re-used in the future in new combinations.
Sensors
Twenty three
sensors are spread over the building. They are meant to detect the movements of
the visitors from one location to another location. The sensors are not doing a
very precise position sensing but are meant to generate statistical information
about the visitors. The result in a measurement that creates distribution maps
of the activity of the visitors over the building. This information is used to
influence the sound. The more activity on one location the faster the sounds
transform in that region. On the other hand the system will try to attract the
visitors to visit the opposite locations or 'push' them away from the current
location.
The visitors
leave their traces in the building because of there interaction with the
architecture and the sound. The nature of the sound is based on interference.
The sound environment as a whole attempts to interfere with the architecture.