STORYBOARDING

3D MODEL: SHOW PROPOSITION

3D MODEL: SHOW IDEAS from April Hudson on Vimeo.


3D MODEL: SHOW IDEAS: BASIC from April Hudson on Vimeo.

3D MODEL: BASIC SITE

3D MODEL: BASIC from April Hudson on Vimeo.

FINAL AMPLIFY

Amplify + Surround Sound Track (small) from April Hudson on Vimeo.

24 Hour Soundscape : Surround Sound

With an 11 port surround sound speaker set, this video will represent 24 hour soundscape of a Jetty off the Southbank. Walk around the speakers to hear each part. 






SURROUND SOUND TRACK: from April Hudson on Vimeo.

24 Hour Representation of space: Inspiration

JANET CARDIFF : 40 PART MOET 


"While listening to a concert you are normally seated in front of the choir, in traditional audience position. With this piece I want the audience to be able to experience a piece of music from the viewpoint of the singers. Every performer hears a unique mix of the piece of music. Enabling the audience to move throughout the space allows them to be intimately connected with the voices. It also reveals the piece of music as a changing construct. As well I am interested in how sound may physically construct a space in a sculptural way and how a viewer may choose a path through this physical yet virtual space.

I placed the speakers around the room in an oval so that the listener would be able to really feel the sculptural construction of the piece by Tallis. You can hear the sound move from one choir to another, jumping back and forth, echoing each other and then experience the overwhelming feeling as the sound waves hit you when all of the singers are singing. ”

24 hours representation

I have begun sound designing on the 11 Tracks I recorded at the Jetty. These tracks represent 24 hours  of the Jetty soundscape. Once I have one overall master track it can be used for a potential Surround Sound installation at show. Below shows the program and data input I have been using.

Tutorial for Surround sound editing

Footage selected:

Surround Sound Track + Amplify installation. from April Hudson on Vimeo.

Surround Sound Tracks

I plan to make an audio surround sound track with 7 outlets - one for each amplification device used in the analogue cinema installation. If I manage to create this track, I can reproduce the soundscape experienced upon the jetty in another place.

ANALOGUE CINEMA // AMPLIFY

There remains something ultimately elusive about sound, about its complex movements in space and time, about the ways in which our listening and talking bodies perceive it and discuss it. In this project I have attempted to listen out for those whispers, cries squeaks and rumbles that lie beyond ‘only the heard’ but also to appreciate sound as a meaning; as an awareness but as humor and provocation. The aim is to showcase the diverse meaning of sound by making it become the emphasis. The work produced based upon this study, is to be experienced in it’s specific location, therefore it is about the place, reflects the qualities of the place and relies upon the place, to provide input to the process and therefore by its presence contribute a the dimension of the place. Through the use of an analogue cinema upon the jetty, I aim to encourage those to stop and listen. By installing amplifying devices made from piping & instrument parts and periscopes, the project transfers the spatial experience of  what lies beneath us to an audible and visual level we can access. Immersing the viewer within the live showing of the Thames, creates a performative , cinematic, multi layered spatial experience. This practice is significant, as I believe it engenders an experience making the subconsciously known, the mundane revealing itself as a surreal encounter of the world we live in and take for granted. By amplifying, framing and adorning the magical beauty of the rhythmic yet unpredictable power of the Thames, this process generates a suspended moment in time. As a generation moving image and digital media surrounds us, I believe the use of an analogue approach questions what cinema is. The results seem to be more prominent because it is not using technology; it is simply amplifying certain qualities of the space the viewer is already within, manipulating their understanding of the site. There remains something ultimately elusive about sound, about its complex movements in space and time, about the ways in which our listening and talking bodies perceive it and discuss it.

SHOW?

This ultra-miniature black case has a built-in GSM bug spy listening device which means that you can silently dial in to this unit from anywhere in the world and hear what is being said within a 7 metre range from the bug. I could use this within the final show to transfer a live soundscape to another place. Perhaps I could also use a periscope out of a window?

ANALOGUE CINEMA: PERISCOPES

Periscope Install 2 from April Hudson on Vimeo.

ANALOGUE CINEMA: AMPLIFY

Analogue Cinema from April Hudson on Vimeo.

Analogue Amplification - in use. from April Hudson on Vimeo.

INSTALLATION - NO SOUND from April Hudson on Vimeo.

Surround Sound Testing

Surround sound test from April Hudson on Vimeo.

24 HOUR THAMES

THE FLEET from April Hudson on Vimeo.

ANALOGUE CINEMA: LISTENING HORN

Add caption

Untitled from April Hudson on Vimeo.

ANALOGUE CINEMA: PERISCOPE

ANALOGUE CINEMA PERISCOPE from April Hudson on Vimeo.

ACCENTUATE: 24 Hour Thames

The Thames is observed as being a hideous blight and a wonderment. In looking to highlight the invisible differences which are actually quite visible , from season to season, depending on the different stretch of water and all the different weather conditions, I hope to accentuate the poetic beauty of the Thames. The routine, regularity which contrasts with the constant varying activity. 


I have developed a collection of audio recording taken over 24 hours of the water - highlighting the changes of pace, beauty and power of the water. I am intrigued by creating an audio installation with 24 speakers, each playing one individual track. As the viewer slowly walks around the circle, they can here the individual contrasting tracks - but as they come into the middle will experience a 24 hour surround sound representation. 

24 hour Thames Audio Surround Test from April Hudson on Vimeo.

FILM SOUND TRACK AND HEART RATE ANALYSIS

2001: A Space Odyssey with live score, Philharmonia, de Ridder, Royal Festival Hall. 

Wave Organ

The Wave Organ is a work of environmental art created by Peter Richards and George Gonzales in 1986. Richards has used PVC piping to produce 'the worlds largest shell'. The tubes connecting to the sea bed are placed to be used as listening devices, connecting the listener closer to the shore beds audio soundscape (and amplifying it).The piece is called Wave organ and it has had a wonderful reception from all those who have experienced it.  The best time to listen to the Wave organ is at high tide - being apx 5.30am - which is the downside of the piece. 


Richards explains, 


"Someone made a recording of the sounds made by water going in and out of a concrete dock in Sydney, Australia. I'd been wanting to add an audible component to my art, and that tape gave me the idea for the Wave Organ."


The Wave Organ's music is a symphony of land and sea, complex, subtle, powerful, hypnotic. Although this is an interesting find for my research, I can't help feeling disheartened by how close to my design this is. However, I am pleased to see that the idea has been tested and works successfully on a large scale. 

Xenakis and Le Corbusier - Architect of Sound.

Poème électronique (English Translation: "Electronic Poem") is a piece of electronic music by composer Edgard Varèse, written for the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. The Philips corporation commissionedLe Corbusier to design the pavilion, which was intended as a showcase of their engineering progress. Corbusier came up with the title Poème électronique, saying he wanted to create a "poem in a bottle". Varèse composed the piece with the intention of creating a liberation between sounds and as a result uses noises not usually considered "musical" throughout the piece.

Varèse designed a very complex spatialization scheme which was synchronized to the film. Prefiguring the acousmonium style of sound projection, hundreds of speakers were controlled by sound projectionists with a series of rotary telephone dials. Each dial could turn on five speakers at a time out of a bank of 12. Many estimates of the pavilion's sound system go as high as 450 speakers, but based on the limitations of the switching system and the number of projectionists used, an estimate of 350 seems more reasonable. The speakers were fixed to the interior walls of the pavilion, which were then coated in asbestos. The resulting appearance was of a series of bumps. The asbestos hardened the walls, creating a cavernous acoustic space.

The spatialization scheme exploited the unique physical layout of the pavilion. The speakers stretched up to the apex of Corbusier's points, and Varèse made great use of the possibilities, sending the sound up and down the walls.^[1]

I feel the experience documented in the above clip of Poème électronique achieves the aims of Expanded cinema. It addresses the live context of watching and transforming cinema's historical and cultural architectures of reception into a site of cinematic experience in a perforative style. Creating a multilayered spatialised experience. I would like to achieve this same spatial experience through the multilaying of sound recordings - creating a new platform to understand the Thames lifecycle.

40 Part Motet by Janet Cardiff at Fabrica, Brighton

As I was walking through the lanes of Brighton I heard what sounded like a coral concert coming from an unpronounced church doorway, on my approach the beautiful coral melodies of a renaissance choral work by Thomas Tallis became more prominent. However, this piece has been reworked under the creative influence of Janet Cardiff, who has recorded each individual choir member seperately (and therefore part) and placed these through a series of speakers placed within a circle. As you can see by the video above, this piece of work is extremely powerful - however I would say better in person as you can appreciate the complexities of both the piece and the performers, it also accentuates the acoustics of the church (not shown in the above video).


Through this adaptation Cardiff promotes 'sound art' but also updates traditional methods and shares them with a new audience. I was extremely moved by this piece and am excited to produce something similar through an circular audio installation of the 24 hour Thames... coming soon.

Acoustics of Shells

The seashell has an inside of which has many hard, curved surfaces great for reflecting sound the ambient noise. The air moving past and within the shell, the blood flowing through your head, the conversation going on in the next room—is resonating inside the cavity of the shell, being amplified and becoming clear enough for us to notice. Different sizes and shapes of shell sound different because different resonant chambers will amplify different frequencies.

Whispering walls

St Pauls

Ideas for Listening devices for the Tidal Thames

Wartime listening device, Capel

A concrete 'ear' on the cliffs near Capel-le Ferne, similar to that on the Dungeness marshes. The idea was to pick up the sound of approaching aircraft, but it was superseded by radar- and faster aircraft.


More Info

Tides - What causes them? How do they work?

Clear Information about Tides

Tide is defined as the vertical movement of water and only goes up and down

Current is the horizontal or sideways flow of water. It floods in which makes the tide rise and ebbs out which makes the tide fall. 

The difference between the high tide and low tide is called the range of tide. For instance, if the water depth at high tide is 20 feet and at low tide is 18 feet, the range of tide is two feet.
There are two types of currents that you can expect in regard to tides.

• Flooding current is experienced when the tide is rising.

• Ebbing current is experienced when the tide is falling.

When the tide has reached it highest and lowest points there is a brief period where there is no current ebbing or flooding, this is referred to as slack water.

The length of time that it takes for the earth to rotate around so that the moon is in the same position is actually a little over a normal 24 hour day. It is 24 hours and 50 minutes or a tidal day. That is why the tidal cycle starts approximately 50 minutes later each day. As the earth rotates, the moon’s gravitational force continually mounds the water and that fluid mound moves around the earth. The actual height of the tide is influenced by the shape of the coastline and depth of the water.

Thames at 4am Sound Recordings

Sound has become recognised as a medium that can make people question and reflect about many things including their own autobiographical experiences and narratives. As well as how movement and interaction in urban environments is partly influenced by the built environment, and temporal dimensions of the everyday.

Listening to sound whether that may be through field recordings (selected individual pieces of audio) and/or soundscapes (audio compositions created from a range of recordings) sheds light on how sound can both be an investigatory tool and an emotive medium. Stopping and listening can engender an experience(s) making the subconsciously known and mundane a revealing and surreal encounter of the world that we live in. Consequently the ordinary can become the extraordinary
.

Sound Mapping

Link to Sound Mapping of The Thames (Kent + Essex)

Something a little interactve: PLAY Orchestra at the Southbank

PLAY.orchestra is our virtual orchestra, which was based outside the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank of the Thames during the summer of 2006.

56 plastic cubes and 3 Hotspots were laid out on a full size orchestra stage, each cube containing a light and speaker

Sitting down on the cubes or standing in the hotspots turned on an individual instrument and with the addition of 58 friends you could hear the full piece.

The installation was also Bluetooth enabled - allowing participants to receive a ringtone of the piece they had created as well as other Philharmonia Orchestra ringtones.

The orchestra played two different pieces each week - one a new commission from a young composer and one a piece from the classical repertoire.

The music played when the seats were activated was made using samples from our free sample library - you can download the samples here.

Time After, Time Along, The River : Marie Jose Burki

The video artist and photographer Marie José Burki produces pictures and modern-day frescos, whose protagonists are captured undertaking activities that are far from spectacular: a woman lying in the sun, people sharing a picnic or dining together. In her videos, the artist loves playing with ponderous movements, cuts, stills and repetition in order to distort any notions of space and time. In this way she generates suspended moments in time, glimpses of an eternal present, which might be anywhere, which have no distinctive qualities and where the subjects seem like prisoners, forever waiting. Occasionally, her images take on a theatrical quality in their artificiality and this incites the spectator to question his own position somewhere between accomplice and voyeur, somehow doubting the reality of what he is contemplating.


In 2000-2001, her work was projected in an outdoor exhibition in New York - Time After, Time Along, The River (Hudson) and in London - Time After, Time Along, The River (Thames), an outdoor projection accompanied by a radio programme.


The Audio CD which accompanies the book, consists of many voices of local inhabitants repeating their names in a repetitive fashion, sometimes overlapping in cannon. This is reflective of the tidal movements and also highlights the number of people the river effects the daily life's of.

Frenzy

Finding a direction: Research: Tschumi

Working with sound and the site closely I feel is causing my findings to come further and further away from architecture within film and spatial design. I have begun to read into some theorists to try to see my project in a different view, and to hopefully reign in and pinpoint exactly what I am wanting, and needing to achieve. Starting with Tschimi: 


Tschumi's critical understanding of Arcitecture remains at the core of his practice today. By arguing that there is no space without event, he designs conditions for a reinvention of living, rather than repeating established aesthetic or symbolic conditions of design. Through these means of architecture becomes a frame for "constructed situations" a notion informed by the theory, city mappings and urban designs of Situationist International.

The ScreenPlays explore the relation between events ("theprogram") and architectural spaces, on one hand, and transformational devices of a sequential nature, on the other.

"There is no architecture without Action, 

There is no architecture without Event, 

There is no architecture without Program."

Instead of designing seductive shapes or forms, one would post an action or principle from which everything else would derive. 


Tschumi felt different means of expression should be able to exchange frames of reference, theoretical or technical progress, theoretical or technical progress, modes of production and distribution, they should cross their aesthetic concern, question and examine each other, let their peripheral zones be occupied, their no-mann's land explored, their borders transgressed. 


He explains that, from spaces of the past, a notion that should be treated with caution. It is often a departure point for conversation and nostalgia. 


Tschimi theories are particularly interesting to read as his views on cinema an film, can be directly drawn from expanded cinema. 

"Its the in-between that really matters, and it takes on an immense presence at Le Fresnoy. A space where anything might happen, a place of experimentation, a place located on the margins. This in-between space quickly becomes a fundamental condition of the project." 


A shelter for the set - the invertible relations between architecture and cinema bounce back in Le Fresnoy with Tschumi's "hangaring" of the existing structures, which are actually cinemas, edifices of distraction. The misunderstanding of cinema is that is it a projection system,the display space or frame, for cinema to happen on a canvas and not in a decor. 


I believe the following paragraph explained Tschumi's work, 
"The drive to create unprogrammed events reveals inventive and astonishing possibilities for the use of places. Isn't the very fact that we now visit the chapel as a museum a demonstration that its function has already changed? What we see is the matrix of a shift in the sacred. Tschumi goes even further: He claims that one can dissociate places and theory uses, thus allow unfitting practices in revised and corrected places.


The most stimulating forms are the ones that permit a variety of uses, sometimes unexpected, born of a user's sudden urge and not of the program that presided over the building construction." 


Through looking into Tschumi's work I have begun to understand what I am trying to do within the space and film; 


To think of the tide as a performance piece (the Action) having a huge effect on the atmosphere of the space and I feel in hand it reflects, literally and in some ways abstractly, the site. By recording the constant systematical rhymic change in tides, but emphasising the beauty and magical quality its holds. I hope to use both the visual and aural documentation and manipulation taken, within the site and through cinema to accentuate this fundamental element which is so often ignored. My intentions are to produce a environment which frames and adorns this performance, englufing the viewer into a transe like state, both healing and informing. 

Further drawing of site