Sounds of the State (Michigan edition), and the state of being touched by and touching sound (some of the maps inside [me])

In progress, as a joint venture of the University of Michigan School or Art and Michigan Radio, is a mapping of site-specific audio, in a collaborative venture Sounds of the State

featuring sonic vignettes curated for broadcast and sonic vignettes submitted by listeners. Check it out!

While an intention or stated objective of Sounds of the State may not be to map time, and to map interactions/collaborations that capture changes in sound, producing a sonic system in which sound-producing variables can continuously reconfigure the system, even across scale as what is not usually audible to humans is amplified in such a way that previously inaudible vibrations become audible, Sounds of the State can produce such systems. The linking of sounds to a map implies occasions (that happened, that are linked moments that the sonic vignettes both contain and are contained by), that once on the map are part of history; what something sounded like under particular circumstances. A record of what a moment sounded like, including he shape of sound, the structure of the sonic memory that includes that with which the sound connects. As the sound travels, reaching listeners, the sound may become able to attach additional memories and thoughts of the listener to the configurable structure of the memory on the map. There is also possibility of interaction of the mapped sound with other sounds and inaudible vibrations in the listener's environment at the time that the mapped sound is heard. It would be possible for a listener to re-record the sound in the extended listening environment, and then place that reconfigured sound interaction on the map where that reconfigured sound would be available for similar interaction. I am now listening to bats at sound of the state, and listening again as I type this, recording the bat sound interacting with the typing and with the aggressive chewing of a minty gum by someone working in the shared DL1 space —my iPhone is recording (as boldly as I dare in placing the phone closer to the chewer) the typing, the chewing, and the rattling of a cellophane snack-bag. Once I've uploaded this sound piece to the computer, I'll add it to this post. Love the human qualities of train voices (that I'm listening to on the website) and lap smacking from a train of gum-chewing (a chew-chew train); here's the modified engine, stilled and quieted, sent directly from the Limited Fork iPhone (chew-chew train):

Also heard in the wild is The Call of the Oropendola (from NPR's Secret Language of Insects), other components of a mapping of sonic shapes. Various physiological mechanisms help determine the shape of sound production; mouth, lips, tongue, teeth, vocal cords, air help configure the look of the sound being produced, as in the following video:

Tactile methods could be used when, for instance, visual cues are not useful or when more intimacy in sound-making is desired, perhaps a necessity of speaking in the dark; efforts to match one's own lips to the felt shape of the monkey lips to help in the making of a sound with similar architecture. Or to augment what it means to experience things, interfaces of the senses. This is response as vibration, the feeling of sound, of pulsations throughout the body manifesting in movement as demonstrated in this video in which styrofoam beads dance:


This is hearing with the body. This is some of the dimensionality of sound as it interacts with physical structures inside and on the outside of the body. The waveform pattern of hair moving with rhythms of air in various states and degrees of agitation.


This is also Evelyn Glennie, a percussionist who is also deaf, experiencing sound throughout the body; hearing is but one outcome of interactions with vibration in the acoustical range of what's audible to humans.
David Merrill offers something I find very compelling, vibrations of excitement swirling in my mind and brain, mapping my enthusiasm for The Sound of Touch: a new instrument for real-time capture and sensitive physical stimulation of sound samples using digital convolution. The hand-held wand can be used to (1) record sound, then (2) brush, scrape, strike or otherwise physically manipulate this sound against physical objects. These actions produce sound in a manner that leverages peoples existing intuitions about sonic properties of physical materials. The Sound of Touch permits real-time exploitation of the sonic properties of a physical environment, to achieve a rich and expressive control of digital sound that is not typically possible in electronic sound synthesis and control systems. quoted from the Sound of Touch MIT webpage)



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Of course, ultrasound offers a use of soundwave frequency technology that is familiar to many of us as a tool that helps visualize the dimensionality of the fetus in the womb, creating a picture with sonic or acoustical energy above the range of human audibility; but even though we can't hear it, as the mind interacts with sonic energy, there are likely effects of responses to the interactions. It is through ultrasound that I saw my son's face for the first time and also saw, well before a face developed, my son as a comma, the embryo's insect impersonation. (image from wikipedia)


AND NOW: The Call of the Oropendola whose vibrations could be amplified to a scale that forces obvious dances, obvious movement, perhaps to a point of collapse. Sound maps of locations (scales) of what most unassisted auditory maps (human ears) do not hear.