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The genesis of this art occurred one day when I payed attention to a dripping tap in my kitchen. I noticed the pitch of the drip would change. If the same drip caused a different sound I wanted to capture this and better understand what was happening. It turned out that the tap was dripping into a bowl that was delicately balanced onto a saucer. Each drip would cause the full bowl to wobble, sometimes spilling some water and accounting for the change in pitch. Nevertheless, the idea formed to record and observe dripping water as an analogy for how sound travels through a medium. In Seeing Sound 1, an iphone was used to record the pitch changing drips. The resolution turned out poor, so I loaded the footage into imovie and experimented with stock visual effects to try and figure audio analogies for the visual effects. The project broadened to aiming to express audio effects in a visual way, to better understand them and potentially help teach others. Seeing Sound 2 3 clip on LEDs were fitted with coloured cellophane, Red Green and Blue. The original idea was to focus the three lights into the centre of a bowl to which water would drip. Theoretically the 3 primary colours would converge to make white light, which each drip of water would temporarily diffuse. In this rendition I attempted to record with 2 gopros, and 2 microphones simultaneously. The rationale was to capture dripping from multiple perspectives, to observe whether different viewpoints would capture different results. This proved difficult to setup and then syncronise. However using higher quality cameras showed interesting information. Seeing Sound 3 Seeing sound 3 used the same cheap clip on lights as its predecessor. This time, with the assistance of Remal, a professional camera was used. This was recorded in his bathroom using a drip from his shower. The camera was rigged high up so that it could focus on the centre of the image and be to the side of the drip. Because the drip was far away from the source, I was unable to control the drip rate. In post production I again used Imovie and split the piece into seven sections. The images above reflect some of the post production effects. To the left is normal footage. In the centre is black and white (reflected sonically with bitrate reduction). To the right the colours were inverted, the footage was reversed. Sound was reflected by reversing the audio, and resonator analogised the yellow colour with an e note. Seeing Sound 4 With the assistance of members of the Perth Artifactory, I rigged up an LED array which produced purer and brighter coloured light. The setup moved away from a sink to an installation. It was demonstrated to the West Australian minister for culture and arts, with a projector that showed the previous renditions. When it came to capturing the footage however, I was unable to control the drip rate, and the footage ended up showing running water. I ended up keeping the footage and subtly manipulating the audio. Seeing Sound 5 A new lighting and camera array was made for this and subsequent versions. A Gopro camera can easily sit in a hole on top and the LEDs are in fixed positions (reducing complication with capturing simultaneous footage and audio). I added a small tap to a bottle of water to make the setup mobile and control the drip rate. This array attempts to control variables and make the process simpler. Unfortunately the height of the top is not substantial enough. As result the drips become too soft as they hit the water, and are difficult to capture on microphone. However I was able to adjust the drip rate to be at a cyclical tempo, and the footage came out vibrant and clear. Thanks go out to the Perth Artifactory for their assistance with wiring up the electronics, and laser cutting the top and base. Seeing Sound 6 To get around the height issue, outlined in the previous work I enlisted the assistance of Noismachin performer, Jim Dangerous. He brought some ultra sensitive stereo microphones that we could place directly next to the sound source. The audio still did not turn out as clear as hoped, but it was enough to work with. The lighting array was placed on top of the bowl of water in an attempt to increase the distance of the drip. After capturing the footage I worked with Sam deKock (film student). We collaborated on adobe premiere in post production to generate visual effects, some of which are displayed above. It is fascinating that 30 seconds of usable footage and audio was slowed down and looped to become the piece that extends for approximately 5 minute 30 seconds. |