New materials have arrived…
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Copper
New transmitter circuit
Testing out a different LED transmitter circuit that is working well. Next test with laser for working with dust.
This circuit is made of much more readily available parts (resistors, capacitors) rather than audio transformers. It sounds a little noisier / rougher but still very clear sound transmitted. Will continue to swap out components to get best signal and then post circuit.
Dust
Just got hold of Dust by Michael Madder from the great Object Lessons series. Should be very useful when I start making and playing and collecting dust.
Dirt is designed. It is uniquely composed, site specific, and innately intelligent. … Dirt is a design tool. Collecting and composing dirty matter is a fruitful foundation for the creation of spaces, artifacts, and atmospheres.
[Bjorn, Furjan and Jencks in Bed Rossiter, Dirt Research]
Viscosity
‘[Hyperobjects] present us with viscous surfaces from which nothing can be forcibly peeled. There is no Away on this surface, no here and no there.’ [Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects, p. 31]
… we have everywhere? or are we left with nowhere? Exploring the wooden surface and structure of nails of the elastic band drone machine can the viscous nature of sound across this surface be creative / be performative?
Transduction of sound through materials is, through process, exploring the viscous nature of materiality. Sound sticks or travels across, speeds up or slows down, repels, repeats and folds because of the materials, the frequency and the interaction between them.
Is dust the expression of this viscosity? What is emergent from viscous sound materials?
‘Light itself is the viscous thing of all, since nothing can surpass its speed.’ [Timothy Morton, Hyperobjects, p. 32] How is the viscous nature of light changed by using light to transmit sound? Is sound then just as viscous as light. Connections to Deleuze discussing light within pleats of matter in The Fold.
Hyperobjects are viscous. Dust is a hyperobject. Dust is viscous. A viscous sound performance of dust and vibration – suggests low frequency extremes. Build a system of drone devices, viscous drone devices, or dusty viscous drones.
Emergence
Emergence, interaction, expression, affect, potential, tendencies, capacities. What is happening when a vibration motor is attached to a power source and forces the movement of another physical property (elastic band or metal wire)? The motor can turn an unbalanced mass at a variable speed when attached to power and control (potentiometer, Arduino). This turning motion has the capacity to send waves across fields of nearby objects – the turning motion itself is a tendency of the vibration motor. The tendency is emergent from the motor due to the interaction of the parts that produce it as well as the addition of voltage. Addition? Are ‘addition’ and ‘subtraction’ emergent properties? Spin the motor fast enough or place it in an environment of extreme high temperature and other tendencies will emerge, flowing as liquid metal from the motor. The motor only has the potential to vibrate objects if other objects susceptible to those forces actually exist. Interaction and maybe intra-action at play in the objects inner workings.
Beginning with dust and light.
Remembering Felix Hess circuits and cracklers.
Dirt Research
Dirt is the stuff that makes a system jump.
[Born, Furjan, Jencks 2012 in Ned Rossiter, Dirt Research]
Copper
The open circuits of the earth pre-date those closed metallic structures of wire, metals, resistors, capacitors and signal. [Parikka] Signal is, of course, naturally in and of the Earth and the approach of psychogeophysics embraces this earth signal (Earth Sound Earth Signal – Douglas Kahn) to open back up the connection between us and earth. This has been occurring in the field of sonic arts since mid-twentieth century – exploring materials and their sonic properties / acoustics as well as the wider fields of electromagnetism. The South West has a history of extracting the metals of the earth – the soil is electromagnetically rich with copper – ripe for earth circuit practices. Inspired by Martin Howse’s Earth Computing – the copper in the soil investigated through probing for potential sonic interference. Need to re-read Graham Harwood’s short text, along with Raqs Collective, ‘Aluminium’ [2008]. The earth has the signal and dirt (dust) and decay and life for developing next stages of practical work. Copper is essential for the creation of D.I.Y solar cells for light measurement and modulated signal reception – the earth measures. The work begins to move to acknowledge the anthropocene in a direct way. METALLURGY.
Read – Parikka, Kahn, Howse, Harwood, Morton, Bryant, Deleuze, Bennett
