Project report

This project deals with the phenomenon of change in space perception caused by environmental, urban sounds. Space perception exists due to the use of senses when walking through a certain place. The senses transfer data to the brain and the brain sends signals to the rest of the body, so it knows how to respond to the location. People who are blind relying on hearing, walking through a noisy place will change their space perception and they will probably assume that they’re in a much bigger space. Most people walk in their regular tracks without noticing the changing environment, of those tracks, people with sight disabilities, on the contrary, are well aware to those changes. Creating awareness and sensibility to the environment, at the urban dweller and by that expressing its changing qualities is the purpose of this project. Grosz wrote in her book that by using our senses we can get to another dimension. By using our hearing people can get to a virtual space that can be achieved by illustrating the changes of space perception caused by environmental and urban sounds (soundscapes).

The soundscape at the Namir bridge over-alls the sounds that characterize an area that combines a high way  with an area intended for leisure; the sound of riding a bike, footsteps, people running, talking oppose to the sound of cars riding above the bridge. The sounds have an impact on our space perception, in other words, when a person walks under the bridge and hears the sound of cars above him, his space perception changes because before that he was hearing sounds coming from the park (while walking there) which are much quieter then the cars. Although the park is much larger than the space under the bridge, the car noises make person think that he’s in a much bigger place then it is. That feeling is created by the feeling of stress, discomfort and excitement as a result of a certain sound. Those kinds of feelings are typical to those sounds because the combination of sounds of machinery and industrial creates infrasound. Infrasound is a sound with low frequency, under 20 Hz, and although people can’t really hear that sound it has been proven that infrasound, when heard, can cause nausea, irritation, discomfort and etc.

As noted before, the sight has a soundscape, a mix of sounds that characterize the area. Each sound exists by its own and each one of them has its own impact, therefore, each sound can be related as a unit or a germ, for instance, the soundscape can function as a group of germs and the space perception can function as white blood cells. This analogy can be explained by the space perception change via the volume of sound, as far as the volume increases the space gets bigger , meaning, as far as there is a growing amount of germs , the white blood cells duplicate themselves and take more space.

The sound impacts are being tested, each one separately, on the human space perception. Each sound gives a separated spatial experience whereas the combination of all sounds creates a brand new experience. It can be said that this situation is binary, by Tyler Volk’s book, in his relation to form and function as a pipe built out of spheres. Each sphere has its shape, when linking spheres we get a new object- the pipe, the function. In other words, each sound has its own shape, and when linking all the sounds together we create a soundscape, a new function, experience and shape.

The new shape that is being created becomes possible due to the spatial perception change as a result of the sound volume. The perception is being expressed through the amorphous shape of the final structure and by the multiplicity of the cells and the way they’re being spread. This shape got created as a result of form evolution, the initial form was built out of a pipe that functioned as a route that began under the bridge and ended above it, it included all the sounds that characterize the area. By the book of Greg Lynn, a shape is a product of formal evolution that took place through a certain amount of time with the influence of numerous parameters available in animation.

Thanks to the animation process, each part of the pipe was deformed according to the volume of the sound and then got frozen in a certain time that expressed the spatial perception in the most proper way.

The final structure is built out of cells that create a skeleton. The cells were arranged randomly by the new shape, the route pipe, and by the volume of sounds in each area (the louder the sounds the bigger amount of cells spread in that area, inside and outside). The skeleton that got created functions as a conceptual skeleton of the spatial soundscape at the area and it takes the urban dweller through new spatial experiences in each part of the structure.

The decision to make a skeleton-like-structure built out of cells is a resultant of a collage made of all kind of white blood cells. The inspiration for that collage came from a microphotograph that shows white blood cells in the act of destroying germs. This photo is the reason to which made the comparison of cells with space perception.

The parts of the structure that express the increase in the volume of sounds and their location is not arbitrary but derives out of EKG tests and mapping process. The EKG was made to test the influence of sound on the human body, the results revealed that the locations at the sight that had the most influence on the human body is the places that relates to machinery. In the mapping process the results were arranged by its sound origin and that what led to the decision where the structure has more volume or less.

The will to prove that sound can influence the human body physically, not only mentally, came from the analysis process. The assumption was made after noticing a change in heart beats while listening to the chosen sound, the sound of a cats breathing.

The final structure indicates awareness to a virtual phenomenon; the universal pattern of the soundscape dictates the borders of the structure and creates awareness at the urban dweller of his environment. The structure is not static due to the skeletal form; it looks like it’s in a continuous move and borderless thanks to the increasing and decreasing volume of sounds.

Filed under: Thematic Studio