Surface Resonance…

This section is about the questions, tests and discussions with others around the installation and presentation of works.

Ultimately, the compositions and their presentation lead to engaging an audience in vibration and vibro-acoustic experiences, developed to answer my research questions and express my ideas and inspirations. However, the purpose of the Masters research program was not to cover the field in terms of installation for vibration, or to explore the full range of ways in which materials can be activated into vibration, such as activating the space, or installing vibrating materials.

Thus, the presentation for examination is provided as a means to understanding my compositions and research, and as a springboard for future installation work, rather than as an assessment of research around vibration installation.

This section provides the background to the way I approached installation and audience feedback in my research.

Intended installation approach

For the works made, the intended installation approach is to use the table, or iterations of this (e.g. larger vibrating area, suitable for lying or sitting) with a close stereo or quadraphonic loudspeaker arrangement.

The aim would be to offer an enclosed experience, by presenting the table within a small, darkened room or partition, and using the location of speakers (as an indication of the listening location) and passage into the space as a passive invitation to the listener to touch, sit on or lie on the table.

The ideas leading to this approach have been developed over the course of the program, through dialogue with others experiencing the table and the works.

Ideally, with funding, I would be able to offer a more constructed approach to the vibration installation, so that the table or a variation from this was integrated into the installation space. However, I am keen to keep to an experience that invites sitting or lying, rather than just standing, as this offers a greater bodily experience and sense of being within the sound and vibration.

My thinking around spatialisation of sound is in keeping with this. My initial compositions included quadraphonic (plus vibration) mixes. I found that, beyond very minimal/subtle approaches, the surround effect was too perceptually engaging for the listening sense, which worked against the aesthetic I wanted from the combination of vibration and sound, where the auditory sense was ‘deactivated’ and folded into the vibration experience.

Guidance from audience and other feedback

In October 2007 (Phase 2), an opportunity came up to install the table at a dub/reggae gig, run by the friend who made the large sound system I used for earlier testing. I used this opportunity to check some of the logistical issues with moving the table, and to test how people related to it in a public setting. The table was installed next to a wall and setup to synch with the music, supplementing the bass experience.

This installation showed me a lot about the way people engaged with the table, and seeded ideas about the "method" of inviting people to it in a public context, as it related to eventual gallery or public space installation.

I tried to both directly and casually gauge the reactions people had to the sense of an additional bodily element to music and how this integrated into the music experience context. Interestingly, composers and musicians at the event were more instinctively inquisitive and came back to it, asking questions and engaging with it by sitting and lying.

I came to the conclusion that for the table to work in installation, I needed to create some form of “passive invitation” – not to direct people too bluntly to the experience, but to allow a curiosity, by somehow suggesting that the table is sat on or engaged with somehow to experience sound. The idea of loudspeaker positioning was the most simple answer to this – in that an audience will recognise an ideal listening location by virtue of loudspeaker placement, which would lead to engaging with the table. The gig install was really valuable in this sense, as it not only reminded me of the potential awkwardness of the system, but that there should be workable approaches around this.

I discussed my ideas during the various sessions with the postgraduate groups and with Berlin based sound curator Elke Moltrecht, when she attended RMIT in 2008. These discussions really helped in refining my thinking and confirming that I was on the right track.

I also gained valuable feedback from the postgraduate group and others around the approach to my works. In particular, in late 2008, I installed the table at RMIT and ran a number of sessions with questionnaires. Participants included postgraduate and undergraduate visual and sound arts students and other personal contacts.

I used this opportunity to present the ideas and the experiences I was aiming for in making the works, and to discuss the engagement with the table, the nature and intensity of the vibration experience, the way people responded to my approaches to aligning and pulling apart the vibration and sound components, and installation suggestions.

Some key feedback and thinking that helped guide my thinking around composition and installation are provided in the notes subpage. People’s suggestions on installation in a space are incorporated in my comments above.

For the creation of new works, the main ideas that I gained were that:

• There were a range of expectations and preferences for the intensity of the vibration experience but overall the experiences I was aiming for in making the works were well received. This helped confirm for me that I was on the right track in the making of works.
• People focused more critically or intellectually on the work and phrases where there wasn’t sound with the sensation. The directly meshed pairing of sound and sensation helped in ‘sensory deactivation,’ which was an effect I wanted to continue working with.
• While there is scope to play with divergence in the levels and intensities of the sound and sensation elements, timing differences in more plosive and rhythmic elements tended to jar perceptually. I think these probably worked against established expectations based on the real-world experience of sound paired with sensation - i.e. during more dramatic or obvious sound and vibration events, the elements tend to more tightly coincide, because one low frequency stimulus generates both the sound and vibration.
• More subtle passages of vibration might not work for a casual listener, depending on the way expectations were set up through the installation. For example, if a listener lay on the table during a subtle vibration passage, they may find the vibration 'insubstantial' and not stay to be drawn into the work. But if the installation was framed in such a way that the listener became involved at the beginning of the work, they may find the more subtle passages interesting, or appreciate them as part of the narrative arc of the piece.

I was pleased to receive this feedback. It helped show that my research and communication ideas were largely successful. But it also clarified the differences between effective experiments with the interplay between the senses, compared to engaging installation works, which may need to be less ambitious or conceptual. However, comments suggested that careful framing of the experience through installation can help engage people in more challenging compositional structures, such as contrapuntal passages, plosive elements or more subtle vibration.

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Presentation subsection:   Detailed notes