transpose, 2010

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transpose, 2010

  • 18” x 18” x 48” (a light weight hanging structure from ceiling)
  • September 2010. ISE Cultural Foundation, Soho, NY
  • No sound by artist.
  • 12” subwoofer speaker with amp, bamboo, cotton thread, original circuit, metal, piezoelectric microphone, tracing paper, wood.
  • — sound info —
    Noise activated sound and paper crane sculpture.

A noise activated sound sculpture, transpose, 2010, was originally created for the window space in the ISE Cultural Foundation, NY in 2010. The idea of transpose is to connect two worlds; “yin and yang” that represents “negative” and “positive”, with signals.

At the site, there is a large window separating the outside and inside, which is faced on Broadway. A piezoelectric contact microphone is attached to the window and captures the vibrations of the large window that is created by outside noise, such as sightseeing buses, the subway, people screaming, and the occasional banging of the window by strangers.

The vibration signals are amplified and transformed into low frequency signals, which then activate a subwoofer, installed facing up. Above the speaker, there are three cotton threads hanging from the ceiling. Each thread has a tiny fishing weight on the bottom, gently touching to the subwoofer cone. In the middle of each thread, a translucent paper crane is attached at a different height. As the result, when the subwoofer is activated, the vibration of the speaker cone vibrates the paper cranes; the noise revives the paper cranes with gentle and beautiful motion.

transpose was activated 24/7 during the exhibition periods.

Text by Takafumi Ide, August 2016