While for my Walking Soundscape concept (that I wrote about here) it was almost too easy to find existing reference works, now for my Emotional Space sound installation, this proves to be quite the challenge. But to draw inspiration and build upon knowledge from previous works of other people is such a valuable asset that this step should clearly not fall short. I managed to gather a collection of reference works that I affiliate with different aspects of what I want The Emotional Space to become. While in this post I will focus on installations that I found through various resources, I will dedicate my next post to the same topic, but present the findings that were approached in a more scientific way and got a paper published about them. (This categorization is purely made for reading convenience and does definitely not aim to assert that any of the works below are unscientific).
[…] an arrangement is created in which visitors take on an active influence. Rhythm and variance, like in music, are essential components of the installation […]
ZKM NEWSROOM about “resonate”
“Resonate” (2012)
This was a project by students of the Mainz University of Applied Sciences & Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. Next to its collaborative component, this installation also put an emphasis on creating a musical composition. Additionally, I like the smooth and immersive visual design, which is clearly a big part of this project (also considering that interior design students were involved). The quote above is something that I would also like to see The Emotional Space described with.
The Cave Of Sounds (2013)
The Cave of Sounds is a very interesting project by Tim Murray-Browne together with eight other musicians that all bring their own novel musical instruments to create an installation where visitors can play music together in an unmediated fashion. The fact that this creates a soundscape or even musical pieces completely controlled by visitors caught my attention.
Floating Sounds (2017)
This installation by flora&faunavisions which was done in 2017 for Telekom Electronic Beats. Visitors could mark their musical preferences on a punch card which was then fed to the machine and would get a unique experience in shape of a walkable soundscape. Not only the term “walkable” immediately clicked with me, but also the fact that one of the goals was to create unique sound and visual experiences.
Technological Reference Works
Something I should not forget to mention is of course the similarity to projects working with the same technology. In my case, this refers to the wearable sensors, which will most likely be from the company Instruments of Things. However, their first product, the 2.4SINK, has not been out for too long yet and it seems to not be too wide spread. However, they received massive support for their new project on kickstarter, which should be shipped in summer 2022, called SOMI-1. I haven’t found any installation yet, where a product from Instruments of Things was a main component, but quite many performances already, which all look beautiful. Below I linked a video of some SOMI-1 test sessions, where dancers are wearing the sensors and influence music with their movements.
It is great to see how many people had similar thoughts that they realized in the form of sound installations and performances and at the same time still created art in such a wide range of disciplines. It definitely helped and will still help me to find my path in this iterative design process – may it be by conscious choice to adapt something I like, or through the subconscious influence of all those works I have seen so far.
