the sound of empty space

source: adambasant

The sound of empty space explores relationships between microphones, speakers, and surrounding acoustic environments through controlled, self-generating microphone feedback. Amplifying and aestheticizing the acoustic inactivity between technological “inputs” and “outputs” – stand-ins for their corporeal correlates, the ear and mouth – the notion of a causal sound producing object is challenged, and questions are posed as to the status of the ʻamplifiedʼ. By building flawed technological systems and nullifying their intended potential for communication, the ear is turned towards the empty space between components; to the unique configurations of each amplifying assemblage.

In The loudest sound in the room experienced very quietly, an endless feedback loop between microphone, public address system amplifier, and speaker cone is enclosed within a soundproof aquarium. A communication system disrupted and turned against itself, the sound level within the enclosure reaches an ear-damaging 120dB, approximately the loudness of a car horn at close distance.

The notion of amplification systems as self-generating sound producers is further developed in the piece Pirouette. Like a life-sized ballerina atop a music box, a microphone rotates slowly, bringing it in proximity to seven mounted speaker cones. As the microphone hovers over each speaker in sequence, a tuned feedback melody emerges. Throughout nine full rotations, a skeletal version of the main theme from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake ballet can be heard.

In Vessel, the naturally resonant acoustic properties of a large glass jar are amplified, creating a feedback monody by varying the distance between speaker and microphone. As the components continually move closer and further away from each other, we encounter a system that offers no resolution.

Through pieces which are equal parts banal, inventive, and absurd, sound is revealed not as a distinct object or autonomous event, but rather as a mutable product of interdependent networks of physical, cultural and economic relations.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: wtoutiao

对于纯粹主义者来说，音乐就是音乐，噪音就是噪音。那能不能把噪音做成音乐呢？在装置“空的声音”（The sound of empty space）中，声音艺术家亚当.巴桑塔（Adam Basanta）用三个不连续的系统指挥这些杂音，调和出如管弦乐般优雅的音乐。巴桑塔利用麦克风、扩音器和扬声器生成频率，再通过计算机算法重塑，然后依靠动态运动调音。“通过构建不完美的技术系统，并消除声音原本的交流功能，人耳就会被引向不同组成部分间的空白地带，”艺术家介绍说。

在装置“最响的声音静静地在屋内回荡”（The loudest sound in the room experienced very quietly）中，巴桑塔在消音的玻璃缸内放入了一个骨头状的120分贝的公众扩音器。这个装置边上是作品“回旋”（Pirouette），它就像一个真人大小的芭蕾舞演员站在音乐盒上。上方麦克风一边优雅地缓慢旋转，一边就传来了“精简版”的柴可夫斯基《天鹅湖》主旋律。最后的“船舶”（Vessel）系统则靠着麦克风与扬声器间的距离变动与动力反馈捕捉着玻璃罐内的自然声音。
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: adambasanta

The sound of empty space explores relationships between microphones, speakers, and surrounding acoustic environments through controlled, self-generating microphone feedback. Amplifying and aestheticizing the acoustic inactivity between technological “inputs” and “outputs” – stand-ins for their corporeal correlates, the ear and mouth – the notion of a causal sound producing object is challenged, and questions are posed as to the status of the ʻamplifiedʼ. By building flawed technological systems and nullifying their intended potential for communication, the ear is turned towards the empty space between components; to the unique configurations of each amplifying assemblage.

In The loudest sound in the room experienced very quietly, an endless feedback loop between microphone, public address system amplifier, and speaker cone is enclosed within a soundproof aquarium. A communication system disrupted and turned against itself, the sound level within the enclosure reaches an ear-damaging 120dB, approximately the loudness of a car horn at close distance.

The notion of amplification systems as self-generating sound producers is further developed in the piece Pirouette. Like a life-sized ballerina atop a music box, a microphone rotates slowly, bringing it in proximity to seven mounted speaker cones. As the microphone hovers over each speaker in sequence, a tuned feedback melody emerges. Throughout nine full rotations, a skeletal version of the main theme from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake ballet can be heard.

In Vessel, the naturally resonant acoustic properties of a large glass jar are amplified, creating a feedback monody by varying the distance between speaker and microphone. As the components continually move closer and further away from each other, we encounter a system that offers no resolution.

Through pieces which are equal parts banal, inventive, and absurd, sound is revealed not as a distinct object or autonomous event, but rather as a mutable product of interdependent networks of physical, cultural and economic relations.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: adambasanta

Adam Basanta (b. 1985) is a composer and sound artist whose work traverses electroacoustic and instrumental composition, audiovisual installations, site-specific interventions, laptop performance, and dynamic light design. His artistic output interrogates the intersections between conceptual and sensorial dimensions of listening and audiovisual perception, the re-animation of quotidian objects, and the articulation of site and space.

His concert works have been presented worldwide, including appearances in the MATA Festival (NYC), Gaudeamus Musicweek (NL), CTM Festival (GER), and Akousma Festival (CAN), and have been awarded multiple national and international prizes, including Métamorphoses 2010 (Belgium) and the John Weinzweig grand prize in the SOCAN Foundation Awards for Young Composers (Canada). His music has been described as “frantic, noisy and gutsy” (Words and Music), “an electrochemistry of the new and old” (Boston Musical Intelligencer), able to “[lend] the everyday a peculiar level of depth and intensity” (Disquiet) while “the richness and dynamism of colour in his pieces stirs questions” (Musicworks).

His sound and audiovisual installations, both solo and collaborative, have been presented in North America and Europe in galleries and institutions such as the Serralves Museum (POR), Edith-Russ-Haus fur Mediakunst (GER), Vitra Design Museum (GER), and Laboral (ESP), and have been awarded in the Prix Ars Electronica 2013 (honourable mention, Hybrid Art category) and the 2014 Edith- Russ-Haus Awards for Emerging Media Artists. His installation work has been commended for its “clarity… [and ability to play] with the expectations of viewers or listeners and at the same time [baffle] them in its nearly virtuoso intricacy” (Jury Statement, Edith-Russ-Haus Awards for Emerging Artists 2014), as well its “navigation between noise and musicality with extra-ordinary poetry” (Konbini).

Adam completed a BFA in composition from Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, BC) and an interdisciplinary MA in composition and sound art installation at Concordia University (Montreal, QC). He lives and works in Montreal, QC.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: creativedesignersdatabaseblogspot

Born in 1985 Adam Basanta is an award winning composes and media artist based in Montreal. He studied a Bachelor of fine arts with a Music Major at the Simon Fraser School of Contemporary Arts in Vancouver B.C (2006 – 2010) and then went on to complete a Master of Arts at the Concordia University (2010- 2013) writing a Thesis titled “Compositional strategies in light and sound installations”. Basanta now composes and preforms music using nontraditional actions and digitally-augmented and original instruments. Works of his such as “_guit*” used old electric and acoustic guitars as the soul sound source that where then processed through manual, mechanical, digital and analogue means to produce experimental electronic music, this explored the contrast of methods of producing music from the past with modern methods as well as tying the two together. Basanta also does installations of sound producing sculptures and objects, generally his installations use microphones and speakers to create feedback which explores the acoustics of the surrounding environments, the relationship between microphone and speaker and also the fact that feedback is essentially sound produced from nothing.

Adam Basanta has been involved in a considerable amount of collaborative and solo installations and exhibitions since graduating and installations of his such as “room dynamics” have taken him all over the US and Europe. In both his solo and collaborative works he and his collaborators explore experimental music composition mixed with visual-sculptural art and architecture and the perception of listening by looking at points of interaction between conceptual and physical dimensions of the listening experience. Basanite’s installations and performances are mainly set up at art galleries, museums and universities as well as experimental sound conventions and exhibitions so his work reaches out to a creative and academic audience as well as a small niche of people interested in experimental music production and composition.

I believe Basanta’s minimalism in his installation work is a strong feature of his, works like “The sound of empty space” are music producing sculptures made merely from speakers and microphones that are set out in a clean manor down to small details like how the microphone cable is coiled neatly under its stand, a small detail which I think give a clean consistent aesthetic that you’d expect from a young creative practitioner. I also feel that his minimal style makes his sculptures and works very well explained as there are no hidden components so at a glance you can both understand how his sculpture is working and producing sound and somewhat of the theme it is exploring. To add to his consistency videos made of his installations follow the same minimal aesthetics to produce a strong audio and visual explanation of his works that reaches a wider audience.

There is a strong sense of questioning and wonder in the work of Adams Basanta in all of his work he is exploring sound and its environment and what might be considered sound, music or just noise. So to date all of his work across composition, performance and installations have been “experiments” and just ambient noise maybe he could try and incorporate some of his feedback installations into more accessible music, although “experimenting” is really what he is setting out to do and that is what most people involved in music are doing as music is constantly changing and it is hard to flaw someone experimenting with music as it is so subjective.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: konbini

Né en 1985, Adam Basanta est un artiste basé à Montréal. Son installation, The sound of empty space est très liée à ses activités de compositeur puisqu’il donne à entendre toute la potentialité des matériaux et de l’espace qui les entoure. Grâce à des systèmes de microphones insérés dans ses outils, il fait écouter aux visiteurs le bruit de l’espace vide.

Neutralisant le potentiel de communication des objets, l’artiste met systématiquement face à face haut-parleur et micro, que ce soit dans une bouteille de verre, dans les airs ou bien retenus entre deux plaques de Plexiglas. L’artiste contrôle grâce à des algorithmes et mouvements les sons émis afin de donner toute son importance à l’environnement de ces derniers.

Son idée ? “Amplifier le système d’amplification lui-même” dans un espace décrit comme “vide” et sans une quelconque autre activité sonore. Contacté par Konbini, Adam Basanta explique :

Dans ces travaux, “l’espace vide” se réfère à l’inactivité sonique entre le microphone et le haut-parleur. Habituellement, on utilise des outils pour amplifier les sons importants ; à la place de cela, dans ces pièces, je voulais amplifier le système d’amplification lui-même — le vide entre ces éléments du système dans un environnement acoustique ou un conteneur — plutôt que d’étudier un son “important”.

Un véritable “espace vide” — au sens de vide de toute matière — entraînerait un vide qui occasionnerait un silence complet, le son n’ayant pas de moyen (l’air) de voyager à travers.
L’installation met en lumière la singularité de l’espace vide mais aussi le processus auditif dans son ensemble, rendant compte de la complexité de l’effet Larsen, ou phénomène de rétroaction acoustique.

L’effet Larsen est toujours le résultat d’une relation entre une entrée pour les données (le microphone ici), une restitution (par le haut-parleur) et un conteneur sonore (une pièce, un bocal…). En fait, l’effet Larsen est ce qui rend audible ce système relationnel.

Mais c’est le cas pour tous les sons : la substance de tous les sons que nous entendons est générée par la relation entre une entrée pour les données (nos oreilles, notre cerveau), une sortie de données (l’objet produisant le son), à l’intérieur d’un conteneur acoustique (l’environnement sonique dans lequel nous nous trouvons).

En réalisant ça, toute ma façon de penser le son a changé, passant du statut d’objet à celui de processus. C’était la plus grande leçon de l’expérience pour moi.
La musicalité du vide
Au-delà des simples sons, Adam Basanta, musicien de son état, a veillé à introduire une forme de mélodie dans ces sons. C’est par l’intermédiaire de la retouche sonore par ordinateur que ce dernier rend agréable les sonorités du vide.

J’ai fait de véritables efforts pour musicaliser certains de ces sons, en contrôlant la hauteur ou le volume de la rétroaction, utilisant cela pour créer des mélodies etc. Mais je pense que la musicalité dépend beaucoup de l’intention et de la sensibilité de l’auditeur.

Le compositeur et artiste aux multiples récompenses exploite ainsi l’acoustique, dans la lignée de nombreux prédécesseurs, artistes ou non.

Le bruit de l’espace “vide” a préoccupé bon nombre de scientifiques avant de préoccuper les artistes. La NASA elle-même s’est penchée sur le sujet. Ainsi, si l’expérience d’Adam Basanta apparaît comme une agréable promenade auditive, l’exploration de l’acoustique peut parfois avoir des airs de cauchemars.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: parkettchannelit

Adam Basanata è l’artista del suono che sta dietro l’installazione chiamata “The sound of empty space”.
Basanta ha creato tre sistemi audio incompleti al fine di convogliare un’armonia di ritorno. Microfoni, amplificatori e altoparlanti generano le frequenze che sono rimodellate utilizzando algoritmi computerizzati e regolati attraverso movimenti cinetici.
“Con la costruzione di impianti tecnologici imperfetti e con l’annullamento del loro potenziale previsto per la comunicazione, l’orecchio è rivolta verso lo spazio vuoto tra i componenti“

In una parte dell’installazione di Basanta, intitolata The loudest sound in the room experienced very quietly, l’artista utilizza lo spazio vuoto di una stanza che racchiude un potente sistema di amplificazione 120db PA all’interno di un acquario insonorizzato.

Pirouette è descritta come “una ballerina a grandezza naturale sulla cima di un carillon.” Emette una “versione minimal” ​​del tema principale di Tchaikovsky Swan Lake attraverso un microfono girevole.
Il componente finale, Vessel, coglie il suono naturale dei barattoli di vetro attraverso un feedback cinetico tra l’ altoparlante e il microfono.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: thecreatorsproject

Voor de puristen onder ons is muziek muziek, en herrie herrie. Maar wat nou als herrie muziek is? Voor zijn serie The sound of empty space maakte geluidskunstenaar Adam Basanta een drietal gehackte geluidssystemen, die allemaal op een andere manier het geluid van leegte ten gehore brengen. De feedbacksystemen bestaan uit een combinatie van microfoons, versterkers en speakers, waarin de frequenties worden vervormd via algoritmes en gestemd met behulp van kinetische bewegingen. “Door geluidssystemen te bouwen die opzettelijk gebreken hebben, wordt ons gehoor in de richting van de lege ruimte geduwd,” legt Basanta uit.

De eerste installatie in de serie, genaamd Piroutte, is een microfoon die gracieus boven een aantal speakers cirkelt “als een levensgrote ballerina bovenop een muziekdoos.” Uit de feedback die ontstaat doordat het geluid uit de luidsprekers rondzingt in de microfoon, rijst een “skelet” van Tchaikovsky’s Het Zwanenmeer op uit de chaos. De tweede installatie, The loudest sound in the room experienced very quietly, bestaat uit een microfoon en een versterker die door Basanta in een doorzichtig aquarium zijn gestopt. Als de versterker wordt aangezet, zwelt het lawaai binnenin de geluiddichte constructie aan tot 120 dB, zo luid als een straalmotor. Maar voor wie in de kamer staat is er, behalve de geluidsmeter die 120 dB aangeeft, niets te merken van het helse kabaal dat zich in dezelfde kamer bevindt. Vessel, tenslotte, vangt de natuurlijke akoestiek binnen een glazen pot via een microfoon en een speaker. Door van en naar de microfoon toe te bewegen ontstaat een breekbare, monotone melodie.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
source: adambasant

My work investigates perception – and listening in particular – as an active, participatory, multi-modal activity. I interrogate listening primarily by exploring points of intersection between conceptual and sensorial, psychological and psychophysical, as well as instantaneous and durational dimensions of the listening experience. To this end, I engage in a material approach which integrates sound-producing auditory material with visual-sculptural elements.

My interrogations are often enabled by the audiovisual “re-animation” of simple sound-producing objects or assemblages. I try to “awaken” these objects in a manner that subverts their everyday functions and shifts attention to their performance, their reconfigured individual agencies and group behaviours.

The dynamic behaviour of such objects is spatially distributed, allowing visitors to experience them in relation to their own corporeal movement and durational engagement. In this manner, I hope to engage spectators in a re-examination of both everyday objects and subjective time-based experience from sensorial and conceptual standpoints in a manner which calls into question exclusive definitions of “subject”, “object” and “environment”.

My work is strongly influenced by the cross-pollination of experimental music-composition, visual art, and architecture. By constructing site-responsive architectures in sound, light, and sculpturally exhibited found objects, all of which develop organically in time, I aim to temporally condition three-dimensional sensory environments which encourage extended exploration.

– Adam Basanta, 2014.