- In: Instruments | Noise boxes | Sound art | Synthesizers
- 1 Comment
Nowadays lots of media artists, musicians and music software and hardware products are dedicated to translating visuals into sounds and vice versa. One of the pioneers in this area of “visual sound” was a British electronic composer called Daphne Oram. She was one of the founders of the famous BBC Radiophonic Workshop in 1958. But after hearing Poème électronique of Edgar Varese at the Brussels World’s Fair, she decided to leave the BBC and start her own electronic music studio a year later, the Oramics Studios for Electronic Composition. In this studio, she made one of the first synthesizers and quite likely the first audiovisual synthesizer in the beginning of the 1960s: the Oramics Machine.
With this (of course) analogue and largely mechanical machine, she drew shapes and waveforms onto a synchronised set of ten 35mm film strips which overlayed a series of photo-electric cells. These cells in turn generated electrical charges to control amplitude, timbre, frequency and duration of sounds generated by oscillators. This audiovisual way of music composition was called “Oramics” by Daphne Oram:
Daphne Oram died in 2003 at the age of 77 and oramics and the Oramic Machine were forgotten. But in 2011 the Oramics Machine has been salvaged and now is part of the collection of the Science Museum in London. The videos below document the rescue of this pioneering synthesizer by the Science Museum and explain some of the groundbreaking audiovisual concepts behind it:
More information
- DaphneOram.org – website dedicated to preservation of the Daphne Oram collection
- Article The Story Of Daphne Oram’s Optical Synthesizer in SoundOnSound magazine
- Daphne Oram biography on Wikipedia
- Oramics music composition explained on Wikipedia
- The story of the Oramics Machine in Resident Advisor magazine
- In: Art | Installations | Media art | Performance | Sound art | Technology art
- 2 Comments
Intrigued by optical sound, Mariska de Groot [NL] makes and performs comprehensive analog light-to-sound instruments and installations which explore this principle in new ways. Her work often has a reference to media inventions from the past, with which she aims to excite a multi-sensorial and phenomenological experiences in light, sound, movement and space.
CineChine
In CineChine you experience in physical proportions the phenomenon optical sound – an invention of the 1920’s applied in celluloid and synthesizers – where light and sound are a similar. Objects that remind of a disassembled movie machine are positioned in the room. For every exhibition a new side-specific composition is made:
Niburu
Nibiru is a mechanical performative installation wherein simple rhythmical body movements activates a squeaky pendulum drawing machine, that on its turn creates complex mathematical images. Noises of friction are amplified and sound patterns are created by light-sensitive speakers that scan the changing projected geometric line image:
More information:
- Mariska de Groot website
- Mariska de Groot’s videos on Vimeo
- In: Art | Experience | Installations | Technology art
- Leave a Comment
I first saw this rather aggressive and intimidating installation of Edwin van der Heide in the Klokgebouw (Eindhoven) at one of the first STRP festivals several years ago. Today, I accidentally stumbled across it while browsing the web on a dull day. Thought I’d share it as a new post:
In this engine-powered installation, a speaker is mounted onto a rotating arm that is several meters long. Like a watchdog, the machine scans the surrounding space for visitors. Closer investigation would be tempting fate, with the rotating arm swinging so powerfully round. You hear the impressive sound of the mighty motor turning faster and faster. You can feel the displacement of air as the speaker whizzes past you, and you better step out of reach. The machine slows down and you start exploring the space, with your movements manipulating the sound it produces.
More information:
- In: Art | Experience | Installations | Technology art
- Leave a Comment
At the Dutch Design Week 2015 I bought a Dandelight light made by Studio Drift, a Dutch design studio. Dandelight is a little light made from a real dandelion, which is powered by a 9V battery:
The Dandelight is based on the utopian vision of the amalgamation between nature and technology, a recurring topic in the works of Studio Drift. Actual dandelion seeds are attached one by one to a LED by them, creating a light-emitting dandelion growing out of it’s energy source: the battery. As such, each product is handmade and numbered: I have number 4378. Contemporary “Dutch design” has always explored the borders between art pieces and product design, but is this art or design? For me, it’s definitely an art piece in the “tech art” category. It is an unique art piece, but produced in series and therefore affordable. Maybe it is “design art”. In this video the “luminous dandelion” concept is taken one step further in their sculpture “Fragile Future III“. It also describes the making process of these kind of design art works with natural artifacts, such as flower seeds:
Studio Drift won a Dutch Design Award with another stunning piece of “design art”, also on show at the Dutch Design Week 2015 last week and again focusing on the topic of “light sculpture” and flowers: “Shylight“, to be seen (or better: experienced) in a permanent installation of five Shylights at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, NL:
This video by Studio Drift describes the making of Skylight and some of the concepts behind it
So is the work of Studio Drift art or product design? To me it is both: their work displayed during the Dutch Design Week 2015 can also be included in the upcoming GLOW light art festival. So definitely artists/designers to follow if you are interested in these kind of hybrid nature/technology objects, like I am.
More information:
Ran into these guys yesterday in the Glaspaviljoen at the Bizarre Sound Creatures exhibition during the magnificent Dutch Design Week 2015 in Eindhoven:
Geluidsdrug, a collective organizing biweekly electronic jam sessions in Artspace Flipside, at walking distance from my home:
Everybody can join their jam sessions in Flipside, so I am going to pay them a visit soon..
More information:
- Dutch Design Week
- Bizarre Sound Creatures
- Geluidsdrug (in Dutch)
- Glaspaviljoen (in Dutch)
- Artspace Flipside (in Dutch)
nnnoises 