one man army -

Using my hands and legs! I've controlled the sound, camera, lasers and smoke to achieve the following-

understanding outdoor spaces

With the last week review I received I decided to go out and test this device. I took all the necessary equipment to uni and tried it outside. I learnt a few new aspects of my device and realised that it does not respond to every sound in real life.

So I came back and projected the recorded sound from outside spaces into a box.

What I learnt now was that it get's difficult to understand which exact sound the device is reacting to when too many sounds come from the same source.

So to break this down I came up with one final idea, which was to record events from everyday life and project a bit more controlled sound. Here is the result-

Site testing

Using my after effects knowledge I have generated a rough sketch animation of what I'm thinking of doing with lasers on the site.

Laser mapping of site-

Laser mapping

Before testing the models of the site, I conducted another test where using the device and mirrors I mapped out different spaces in my house.

Test on site

I was travelling during Easter so I had to do this with what I had. Using images from Google earth I have developed a rough sectioned sketch model of the site and will be using my device to experiment on it.

Royal Festival Hall -

Queen Elizabeth Hall -

Hayward Gallery -

Plan drawings of sections -

Final output -

Advanced experimentation

What is a Line Segment?

In geometry, a line segment is a part of a line that is bounded by two end points, and contains every point on the line between its end points.
The combination of several line segments in different patterns gives us geometric shapes. These shapes when viewed in 3 dimensions are called space.
I now intend on creating space through lights, which is controlled by the sound. This can be easily achieved by placing mirrors at angles to fit the area and create space that is born, then dead and re born.

The final result-

Taking a step further

After my previous experiment I have moved on to find ways to improve my device.

The next step for improving my device was an idea that came to me when I was out on a night at a club with my mates. The Thumping/ Reverberation of the music was so strong that it shook me from my bones.

I therefore thought of building a device, which could, due to the strong sound waves, convert the effect into a flowing beam of light, which would show the exact mood of the moment.

What is reverberation?

Reverberation is the persistence of sound in a particular space after the original sound is removed. A reverberation, or reverb, is created when a sound is produced in an enclosed space causing a large number of echoes to build up and then slowly decay as the walls and air absorb the sound. This is most noticeable when the sound source stops but the reflections continue, decreasing in amplitude, until they can no longer be heard. The length of this sound decay, or reverberation time, receive special consideration in the architectural design of large chambers, which need to have specific reverberation times to achieve optimum performance for their intended activity.

In order to create this device I took the help of a friend who’s an electrical engineer.

After discussing with what all I had achieved with him at that point of time I asked him to help me build something that would be more responsive and clearer to what my ultimate purpose was.

We used a very simple and practical project –

The materials we used to carry out this experiment was -
1) A Laser light, a piece of sheet copper, a match box, a regular copper wire of higher density and a set of speakers to amplify the sound in the room.
2) To complete any electrical circuit we need two wires a positive and a negative.
3) I spliced the negative wire going in the laser light.
4) Then I joined the negative wire coming from the mains with the thick copper wire and bend its end at 90 degrees.
5) The other cut end of the negative terminal was connected with the device (laser light) and with the copper plate.
6) Then I installed the entire device on the floor very close to the speakers in room.
7) The two ends (+ & -) were connected into the mains at one end and at the other end was the laser light.
8) Between the two ends as described in steps 3,4,5 I kept the copper plate on the floor ( so that it could pick up the sound reverb from the floor) and the copper wire (4) was placed on the match box in such a manner that there was a little gap between the plate and the wire.
9) Once the sound was switched ON, the plate on the ground started vibrating due to the heavy sound from the speakers. This in turn had an effect and the plate would occasionally touch the wire and the laser light would switch ON or flicker on each reverb... This in turn seemed like the laser lights were directly being controlled by the sound in the room.