Sounds of Dry Leaves/ Unheard Voices: a Robotic Exploration of Listening (State Hypersensitive)
Strangers are ‘noise’, and bringing ‘noise’ forward and paying intended attention to it evokes new meaning, discourse and understanding.
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Sounds of Dry Leaves focuses on the experience of hypersensitivity following a period of isolation. Sounds work as the embodiment of (retrospective) liveliness.
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The testing system researches how attention on the sounds in the environment can provoke a new equilibrium where loudness is a feedback that brings forward obscured sounds or “voices”. The foot repeats the first moment of touching the ground in the walk cycle.
Can isolating natural everyday sounds create a new perspective and a perception of listening?
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Background:
In order to experience the interaction between silence and hypersensitivity, I have built a mechanical leg with a silicone replica of a foot. I have isolated the foot and stepping to look into our ability to create unique sounds. This placed my focus on listening, listening that occurs through the peculiar perception of the hypersensitive state.
The power of this listening condition lies in its characteristics: vulnerable and unfiltered. I have experimented with various objects that create different sounds. To research this conversation space, I have added a system of sound feedback in a room with the installation where the sounds produced by the viewers is amplified.
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The work reflects a personal experience with isolation and the hypersensitivity caused by it. Can isolating natural everyday sounds create a new perspective and perception on listening? I created a testing system researching how amplification of the sounds in the environment can provoke a new equilibrium where loudness is a feedback that provokes silence and bringing forward suppressed sounds or “voices”.
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The Work:
Sounds of Dry Leaves is a programmable mechanical sound machine that is operated by a stepper motor. The machine is made of steel rods, a universal shaft joint and a silicone live-cast foot. The foot, by stepping continuously on dry leaves or other sound producing objects generates various sounds. The stepping motion was fine tuned anatomically using animation principles of a walk cycle. The artistic research was on natural frequencies of objects to emphasise the uniqueness of a sound. The installation is accompanied by a live sound feedback with an amplifier to provoke silence among viewers.
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