Concept: Audialsense (Paul Bavister / Jason Flanagan / Ian Knowles)

Coding: Paul Bavister

Camberwell Leisure Centre,
Artichoke Place, SE5

Sun, 2 July, 2006

Spatial unification through sound

This installation addresses issues of site, sound, occupancy and perception.

There are two corridors within the Camberwell Leisure Centre. Since the buildings conception the corridors have existed parallel to each other, only separated by the pool and gym they tacitly serve.
As the corridors will never meet, Audialsense reunited these corridors with sound.

Two acoustic systems were put in place in each corridor. Neither system can exist without the other. The two corridors then shared a symbiosis, leading to a spatial union born of sound.

The two corridors were articulated acoustically in terms of ‘wavelength’ and the tonal bandwidth of the human voice.

This was achieved by playing sine waves into a space that represent the dimensions of the two corridors. For example, a distance of 5.2 meters has a wavelength of 65 Hz, which is also the lowest available note on a cello. This method has a parallel in systems of harmonic proportion used in the renaissance. These base tones will be further modulated by scrolling tones oscillating slowly between the tonal extremes of the human voice, both male and female. The gendered tones interact to a predefined algorithm, creating specific interference patterns within the space.

As the sine waves reflect off the reverberant surfaces of the corridor, ‘pools’ of standing waves are formed. As an occupant moves through the space, a landscape or sonic topology, is created which can be perceived by the occupant and remembered as one moves through the space.
This immersive, acoustic environment is a reaction to the sound and the space working together.