Audialsense

Overview

This situated research project is a direct response to rigid conventions of acoustics and architecture in practice. The site, Silo468, is a disused gas cylinder on the outskirts of Helsinki, Finland, on an island being redeveloped for housing.

Building on a base of sine waves, additional waves with more complex harmonic overtone sequences were added. Square waves and sawtooth waves resulted in a bed of scaled tones that generated a base drone. These waves were output from speakers placed in a circular array around the site, constantly on and constantly droning. Data from the environmental sensors located around the building was captured and used to modulate a filter of a series of complex waveforms. As the wind eddied around the silo, generating high- and low-pressure points, the sound was modulated by changing the cutoff frequency and resonance of the waves’ upper partials to reflect environmental changes. This created a complex spatially specific timbre in the room, generating a ‘sonification’ of the local environmental changes.

The effect was surprisingly powerful, and the resultant soundscape was deeply resonant and in constant flux. The antinodes generated by the non-fluctuating sine waves generated a clear geometrical pattern on the floor plane that could be physically felt. On top of this, the square and triangle waves gently modulated and shifted, generating a fleeting experience that seemed to tease occupants by constantly moving around the space.