New materials have arrived…
‘[Hyperobjects] present us with viscous surfaces from which nothing can be forcibly peeled. There is no Away on this surface, no here and no there.’ [Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects, p. 31]
… we have everywhere? or are we left with nowhere? Exploring the wooden surface and structure of nails of the elastic band drone machine can the viscous nature of sound across this surface be creative / be performative?
Transduction of sound through materials is, through process, exploring the viscous nature of materiality. Sound sticks or travels across, speeds up or slows down, repels, repeats and folds because of the materials, the frequency and the interaction between them.
Is dust the expression of this viscosity? What is emergent from viscous sound materials?
‘Light itself is the viscous thing of all, since nothing can surpass its speed.’ [Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects, p. 32] How is the viscous nature of light changed by using light to transmit sound? Is sound then just as viscous as light. Connections to Deleuze discussing light within pleats of matter in The Fold.
Hyperobjects are viscous. Dust is a hyperobject. Dust is viscous. A viscous sound performance of dust and vibration – suggests low frequency extremes. Build a system of drone devices, viscous drone devices, or dusty viscous drones.
Emergence, interaction, expression, affect, potential, tendencies, capacities. What is happening when a vibration motor is attached to a power source and forces the movement of another physical property (elastic band or metal wire)? The motor can turn an unbalanced mass at a variable speed when attached to power and control (potentiometer, Arduino). This turning motion has the capacity to send waves across fields of nearby objects – the turning motion itself is a tendency of the vibration motor. The tendency is emergent from the motor due to the interaction of the parts that produce it as well as the addition of voltage. Addition? Are ‘addition’ and ‘subtraction’ emergent properties? Spin the motor fast enough or place it in an environment of extreme high temperature and other tendencies will emerge, flowing as liquid metal from the motor. The motor only has the potential to vibrate objects if other objects susceptible to those forces actually exist. Interaction and maybe intra-action at play in the objects inner workings.
The open circuits of the earth pre-date those closed metallic structures of wire, metals, resistors, capacitors and signal. [Parikka] Signal is, of course, naturally in and of the Earth and the approach of psychogeophysics embraces this earth signal (Earth Sound Earth Signal – Douglas Kahn) to open back up the connection between us and earth. This has been occurring in the field of sonic arts since mid-twentieth century – exploring materials and their sonic properties / acoustics as well as the wider fields of electromagnetism. The South West has a history of extracting the metals of the earth – the soil is electromagnetically rich with copper – ripe for earth circuit practices. Inspired by Martin Howse’s Earth Computing – the copper in the soil investigated through probing for potential sonic interference. Need to re-read Graham Harwood’s short text, along with Raqs Collective, ‘Aluminium’ . The earth has the signal and dirt (dust) and decay and life for developing next stages of practical work. Copper is essential for the creation of D.I.Y solar cells for light measurement and modulated signal reception – the earth measures. The work begins to move to acknowledge the anthropocene in a direct way. METALLURGY.
Read – Parikka, Kahn, Howse, Harwood, Morton, Bryant, Deleuze, Bennett
Album: Human Performance
Springs and coils. The alteration from a single line of material with turns and twists and repetitions of those enables that material to now enter the electromagnetic sphere. A coil of wire now becomes an antenna for mini fm broadcast – to send signal over a small area to a receiver. A coil of wire becomes a pick-up of electromagnetic signals enabling the building of particular ‘sniffing’ devices – listen to your mobile phone or laptops internal processors working. Continue reading “Springs and Coils”
The elastic band drone machine is being rethought and programmed for new output. A development of an assemblage – new emergence! Vibration still lies at the core of the instrument that now seeks explores interference of waves across FM and electromagnetic spectrums. The instrument demands or desires new potential due to its extremely simple setup of parts. It is simple to remove or add elements to such a basic assemblage. Coiled wire brings in new vibrations of electromagnetic pick ups and (mini)fm broadcast (narrowcasting). The physical vibration of coiled wire with a tiny 3v vibration motor introduces new timbres into the field of amplified sound, alongside the rubber bands. These coils, by their very nature, explore the electromagnetic spectrum – basic magnetism. A physical vibration in the circuit is now heard through vibrations of molecules of radio waves on a short FM broadcast. Next to explore is the addition of capacitance to the circuit – understand proximity of hands in the physical playing of instrument. This can be done by adapting the ‘hyperpot’ along with the arduino code to work with the nails. Also, still to explore the development of home made solar panels – this could be interesting to explore alongside homemade piezo crystal.
In preparing devices for performance I have begun thinking of Gilbert Simondon and beginning to realise his influence over many of the phrases used in this sprawling text so far. Initially, thoughts were based around his writing on ‘transduction’ – use of physical transducers on wooden surfaces is part of the development work I am doing on the drone machines. Feeding the audio signal back into the materials that are generating the sound but through physical vibration – this is still sound and can be heard by our ears but exploring a more visceral connection the materials. ‘Transduction is a process where a disparity or a difference is topologically or temporally restructured across some interface. It mediates different organizations of energy.’ (Simondon, Transductions) Don’t want this to merge into interface studies. The use of transducers in the work brings into question all materials at use – it engages them all in sound / noise making practice. All in the aim for stable resonance between emerging sound and parts – as the mathematician Rene Thom stated ‘All interaction rest, in the last analysis, upon a phenomenon of resonance.’ Rene thom has now appeared again in The Birth of Physics by Serres – first encountered him through Deleuze and Guattari.
This excess of sound (zao) is pushed out from the world of sound that is created in music – discarded, unwanted but this material is still beautiful to play with and holds such great potential – it is so simple and so complex at the same time. This excess reminds me of thoughts around entropy and expelled heat from combustion engines – what does the governor in an engine do? Into the field of noise can we place Maxwell’s Demon – allow the fast moving particles to separate from those slower one. Do we end up with a field of high frequency and another of low frequency? This experiment does not allow then for the natural order of thermodynamics to occur and thus no entropy occurs – No Zao! No Excess! I’m confused about entropy most of the time and slightly concerned about including it in my research as it leans too much towards the scientific world and I’m not comfortable there.