BA Sound art

Part 1

These are some of the ideas I had for the work placement when I came here at the beginning. As this venue is the one we use with Monika, I learned that she wanted to use the wall on the right after consulting Monika. Jingya and I then wanted to hang the work on the left wall. But the sofa was too much of a barrier to people’s views and the screen on the wall was a bit like a TV in a home. After some more thought, Jingya and I decided to put the work in front of the window and the sofa next to the screen. The audience can sit on the sofa and enjoy it.

Part 2

This was the equipment we chose at the beginning. But when we connected it to the screen, it didn’t play the sound. We have tried many times and with different devices, but nothing works. So we changed it and used logic x to play it.

Cyborgs are creatures that combine humans and machines. “Wearing hearing aids, cochlear implants or artificial crystals, for example, allows us to restore or even enhance our sensory abilities to survive in a wide variety of environments that vary .” Based on this definition, we can conclude that any self-circulating system that nests the human body with an inorganic body is a cyborg. Thus, humans who wear hearing aids and even pacemakers can be called cyborgs. With humanity’s increasing reliance on technology. Anyone could transform their autosomes and become a cyborg soon. This is the main reason why I chose to fuse with a Cyborg. , Cyborgs are achievable vis-à-vis other humanoid beings (bionics, clones, robots). It is the closest thing to a system we have in the real world.

GOOD HUNTING

I remember most about Cyborgs, <GOOD HUNTING>, which is the tenth episode of ‘Love, Death & Robots’. From magic to sci-fi, placing its central conflict in the balance of tradition and modernity, freedom and confinement. The important twist in the story is a cyberization process: technology can both obliterate traditional culture and revive it, act as an accomplice to oppressive forces, and help people regain the possibility of living in freedom.

Titane

This is a film I saw recently about Cyborg. The film had a kind of impact on me, and I didn’t understand a lot of the plot the first time I saw it. I only felt confusion: a very vague and confusing gender or an indistinguishable body and human-machine boundary. What I found most shocking was that the main character in the film was pregnant with the car’s child. At that time, the female protagonist was dressing as a man, and the kind of femininity (pregnancy) that there was no way to hide and the Cyborg in the womb before it was born struck me. The film is also a constant reminder of gender issues, gender equality and the awakening of feminist consciousness.

Like Donna Jeanne Haraway in The Cyborg Manifesto,

the Cyborgs exist to break down the “male-female” and “man-machine” divisions, and thus the traditional white capitalist patriarchal system of capitalism of the white capitalists of the capitalist world. The creation of a new political ecology, including gender.

It also makes us think about where the line between man and machine is drawn.we have absolute control over the machine by applying modern medical tools such as prostheses and cochlear implants to the human body. Still, without realizing it, we have been shaped into cyborgs – how much of our bodies have been dominated by machines? 

I’m not opposed to cyborgs. Maybe people will live in the world through this form soon. The boundary between humans and machines will also become weaker and weaker, eventually approaching nothing. When I was researching, I also saw many ideas about cyborgs. Some people think that if human consciousness is uploaded to the machine, it will lead to the extinction of human consciousness, but I don’t think so. I think that the so-called disappearance would be a fusion of human consciousness and the machine, which would form a new species. We feel scared because there is no way for us to accept the extinction of ontology.

Thoughts.
Instead of thinking about the boundary between humans and machines, I could think about merging humans and machines.

Idea 1:

1. There could be a piece of start-up music at the beginning
2. Some message beeps in the middle
3. A closing sound at the end
4. A light screen at the end

Idea 2:

1. All mechanical glitch sounds
2. The screen is purple (?)

Idea 3:

1. Immersive experience (noise canceling headphones)
2. The screen doesn’t move close your eyes and enjoy (refer to https://ideasinual.myblog.arts.ac.uk/2022/01/12/flight/)

This is an investigation into what hearing aids sound like. I found that there are two types of hearing aids, those that amplify all sounds and those that focus on capturing the human voice. The technology used in these two types of hearing aids is different. Still, that the sound heard in either type is somewhat distorted (idea 1: different sounds. e.g., left and right channel one amplifies the background sound and the other only the human voice). (idea 2 adjustable, e.g., you can switch the sound yourself. ) Because the Hz captured by the hearing aid is not the same as the one captured by the ear.

1.23 eBG:/ %装置艺术  %人工耳蜗 模拟我小时候刚戴时所听到的声音  https://v.douyin.com/LuwSth6/ 复制此链接，打开Dou音搜索，直接观看视频！

I found this video at first. When I first listened to it, I thought it was incredible. It completely broke my previous perception of hearing aids. The hearing aids do not pick up any melodic parts in this video. The human voice is also very mechanical and full of electronics, which I found amazing. At the same time, I felt that if one lived with this sound for a long time, one would be in a very bad mood. Because for me, it was a total noise, and it would be a terrible thing if all the sounds it captured ended up in this way. So I looked for other videos to see if this one was accurate. I found that it did exaggerate the original sound of the hearing aid and that there was a bit of artistic manipulation in it.

It is clear from this video that hearing aids are adjustable. Each person adjusts the sound in the hearing aid according to their hearing standards (idea 2: adjustable sound, audience adjusts sound level?). This video also gives the best visualization of what the sound in a hearing aid is like. It’s funny at first, but for people who wear hearing aids, this is the sound they hear all the time. I admire them, and it makes me think that some people discriminate against people with disabilities. I hope that technology will get better and better to feel the ‘real’ world.

Feelings

I can’t deny that hearing aids help people with hearing problems to hear again. But can they accept the sound inside? I saw a vlog of a hearing aid patient who spent more time taking his hearing aid off than putting it on. In the video, he talks about how loud it was when he put his hearing aid on and how he felt uncomfortable and unsettled to hear these sounds from the quiet world all a sudden. Many people said that they found it difficult to live with hearing aids all day in his comments section. It’s sad to read these comments, but some things can’t be done in the current situation. If the individual is too weak to make a difference, it becomes the norm to go with the flow. But there is no denying that the benefits of wearing a hearing aid outweigh the disadvantages. It has made a difference in many people’s lives. Wearing a hearing aid is like having the key to two worlds, and as this vlog shows, the whole world becomes a colorful place when you wear it. Whether they can hear with or without hearing aids, all I have to do is respect their choice.

Introduction

Equipment I need: surround sound system

The sound I need:

1. Land sounds (birds, wind)
2. Noise music

Description: If an object is out of its original form, does it still belong to that category? A fish that is still present beyond the water, a scene that is clearly in the water but is heard on land. Is it possible to see through the phenomenon and think that the sound is real and the scene before us is false or is it possible to think that somewhere in the world a fish can make the sound of a bird?

The Process

When I first saw these apples I thought they were interesting. It was some flowing irregular apples. The word “rule-breaking” suddenly came to mind. Why does an apple have to look like an apple? No one says why they can’t be what they want to be. But if the apple changes its form is it still an apple. This is a bit like the Ship of Theseus in that both have a kind of inquiry into the self. But the difference is that Theseus’ ship doesn’t change the state of the object itself, whereas this one does. I tried to think outside my current perception of things like whether fish must live in water or whether apples can grow on bushes. If what I envisage is true then does the sound of the objects change or does it not change at all. If the sound doesn’t change how do I convince myself that this is not true.
So in the end I chose to keep some visual realism and make some adjustments to the sound. For example, when the fish are swimming they make the sound of a flock of sheep moving.

Introduction

Equipment I need: 1-2 acoustics (can be placed left or right, or directly in front of the piece)

The sound I need:

1. The sound of classical instruments
2. The sound of burning
3. The sound of the wind
4. House collapse

Description of the work： This piece will revolve around eternity and the past. It is a movable installation that changes from a skeleton to a human form when one drags in the red position on the right. The only way to not let history be forgotten in eternity is to change it with your own hands.

The Process

I was first inspired by the Alexander McQueen show Widows of Culloden, especially the 3D projection of Kate Moss suspended in the air at the end gave me a romantic and sad feeling. The overall theme of the show was also sad and inspired me. I have been doing research on traditional Chinese culture, but the feeling that many cultures have been lost in history also made me feel sad. Behind eternity is forgetfulness, because they have been around for so long we take them for granted and assume that they will never disappear. So we forget about heritage. The world is moving really fast and the only way to not get left behind is to try and keep up. But this kind of skill needs to be learned slowly, with the foundations laid at an early age to do so. Fewer and fewer people are learning it and eventually the vicious circle leads to this result today.

This is one of the simpler ideas compared to the others. It doesn’t really require much skill either just a drag and then a device to change the pattern. Here is an instructional video I found that I can follow to learn how to make this method.

Introduction

Equipment I need:

• Speaker x 4
• One monitor

The sound I need:

1. Water drops
2. Pure music (violin or piano)
3. Sounds of hungry stomachs
4. Ambient restaurant sounds
5. Sound of ocean waves
6. The sound of a fishtail swinging
7. Sounds of speech (many people/different languages)

Description of the work: Enjoy this work from two perspectives and the sounds you hear are different. For the fish, the sound of the water you hear is the motivation to live, for the people it is just the drooling of the fish because it is so delicious.

The Process

This is one of my more mature ideas. But I think the meaning of its work itself is somewhat greater than the expression of sound art.

This is how it evolved, this is how it started. Above is a bottle that is showing a drop of water falling below a bottle. This was the inspiration that came to my mind at first, I thought it was interesting but they were too monotonous. So on the basis of that, I thought that maybe I could replace the bottle with a fish that is inseparable from the water.

This is the second version, with a fish tank full of water in front and a monitor behind it with a fish swimming around. But I don’t think it would matter if there was no sound in this presentation. The fish and the water don’t fit together very well in this version, they seem to be two separate entities. So I thought that I could make the fish look like a projection as if they were swimming in the water. But when I looked at my sketches again I realized that I had gone a little bit off my original theme.
So it was time for the third version, where I replaced the first version, which belonged to the bottle, with a fish. This gave me instant inspiration, a drop of water that only has a sound but never falls and a fish that is stranded trying to find water. A hope that inspires or a trap for others. These ideas took shape in my mind and I got the best idea I’ve had so far. Replace the monitor that only drips with the person who is about to enjoy the delicacy, and the drops of water falling become drooling.

We can see this work from two perspectives. The first is from the point of view of the fish, which hears the sound of water dripping and thinks of a place where there is water and desperately moves its tail to get closer to the sound of water dripping. It is motivated and hopeful, even if it is wounded, there is nothing to stop it from moving there. But from a human point of view, I wanted to taste this fish that was alive and well, and the more it moved, the firmer and tastier the flesh became. The saliva is just a means of getting the fish to move, and the loss of that is far less valuable to humans than the taste of delicious fish.

I would like to name this work Hope.

About the sound

I wrote about what sounds I needed in the very first outline. Because I was looking at the issue from two perspectives, the sounds were divided into two groups. The first is the sound in the red box, which should be larger than the sound in the blue box. The sound of water drops is the sound that should stand out, while the other sounds can be blurred to make them less clear. The sound in the blue box must be heard clearly only if you get close to the fish. The sound of the fish’s tail swinging is bigger than the sound of the waves and bigger than the human voice (shouting), and hopefully, the sound is layered.

Technique

I would prefer the fish to be moving than to be drawn into the display. This is a type of Chinese lantern called a fish lantern. Its skeleton is made of bamboo and it moves when one holds it in the hand. I think it might work well if there were some moving parts on the tail of the fish.