What sound can do

With the increasing of augmented reality, immersive experiences and artificial intelligence aimed to stimulate the senses; sound is becoming a key gateway to audiences. For multi-sensory experiences, vision is only one part of our experience of the world and what we perceive as reality. Laboratories, artist and designers are researching what sound can do.

Understanding

The interactive virtual environment laboratory (LIVELab) at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario is a research concert hall, focused on sound. The goal is to research the many ways in which humans interact with music, consciously and unconsciously. Researchers study why we spend so much time and resources on musical activities, how we make music together, how musicians coordinate their movements and the unspoken coordination music brings out. While the Lab is technically a research facility, it's also a concert venue, which is open to the public.

Uploaded by McMaster LIVELab on 2018-06-26.

Artist that play

Haroon Mirza, the British multimedia artist, makes installations that test the interplay between sound and light waves and electric power. He describes his role as a composer, manipulating electricity, making it dance to a different song and using different instruments. Processes are exposed and sounds take up space. Mirza asks us to think about the distinction between noise, sound and music.

Watch our interview with acclaimed London-based artist Haroon Mirza about his major solo exhibition encompassing sculptural assemblage, immersive installation and live performance at ACCA. 'Haroon Miza: The Construction of an Act' is the artist's first solo exhibition in Australia, bringing new commissions into dialogue with re-presentations of recent work to provide a choreographed experience of Mirza's diverse interests and applications across the last decade.

Spatial audio

The British composer Anna Meredith has developed the app Moonmoons AR together with designer Arthur Carabott. The app enhances the sonic experience of the listeners by placing six virtual speakers. These speakers resemble prototypes made by aliens, but are ceramic objects made by Anna's sister Eleanor Meredith. By physically moving between the different sound sources, users can craft their own personal "aural experience", changing the direction from which they hear the instrument and its volume, the closer they get, the louder it will be. This effect is called spatial audio.

Anna Meredith has collaborated with designer Arthur Carabott to make [moonmoons AR] - http://www.annameredith.com/moonmoons - an app that uses Augmented Reality and Spatial Audio to allow listeners an in-depth exploration of Anna's new single moonmoons.

Audible pleasure

ASMR, or autonomous sensory meridian response, is a pleasant physical or emotional feeling triggered most often by soft sounds such as vocal fry, rustling leaves, crinkling paper, or scratching dry skin. It has become a popular YouTube genre. Many people describe the feeling as “tingles” that run through the back of someone’s head and spine. Others say the feeling is deeply relaxing, and can even cause them to fall asleep. Femke Huurdeman has created “Feast your senses”, a whispery video for Shiseido’s DIY facemask, inspired by the ASMR phenomenon.

Furniture music

Sound artist and composer Yuri Suzuki tries to convert sounds that we regard as disturbing or distracting into more pleasant sound. The range of charming lo-fi devices suggest ways to improve the sound of domestic life. Furniture Music attempts to re-design the domestic soundscape and propose ways for sound to not turn into noise but rather help enhance harmony and comfort within one’s surrounding environment.

The title Furniture Music comes from French composer Eric Satie’s description of his own music as ‘a sound that should not be actively listened to, but present at the periphery of our daily lives’. Suzuki’s work seeks to examine exactly those sounds at the periphery, which can greatly impact our environments, and offer solutions to real-world problems by challenging how these sounds are designed. Furniture Music attempts to re-design the domestic soundscape and propose ways for sound to not turn into noise but rather help enhance harmony and comfort within one’s surrounding environment. Furniture Music comprises two main bodies of work: an immersive installation, titled Sound of the Waves (2018); and a series of appliances and furniture pieces conceived for the kitchen/living areas of the home which include, amongst others, a Singing Washing Machine (2018), developed in conversation with composer Matthew Herbert, and a Musical Kettle (2017). Yuri Suzuki 'Furniture Music' 22 February – 21 April 2018 Stanley Picker Gallery at Kingston University London Curator: Stella Bottai Drawings: Philippe Dupuy Video team Director: Alice Masters Assistant: Stuart Heaney Many thanks to: Matthew Herbert, SCP, Disegno, The Design Museum, GB Sasakawa Foundation, Stanley Picker Trust, Arts Council England, Dani Smith, Ken Fujiyoshi, Fay Burnett, Ed Longville, Stanley Picker Gallery Team and everyone that helped realise this project

Furniture Music, The Lighthouse, Glasgow, Sat 5 Oct 2019–Mon 6 Jan 2020.

Sound design encourages an audience to connect with what they are watching. Sound can set a scene, can create an atmosphere and can tell a story in itself.