The Softness of Things
Week 4, Network Audio Style

The Team: Thomas, Petra, Ithai, Kate and Alex

We needed to build a network. The first idea that came out was audio,
"Let's do something with audio." A network is two or more units
connected together, interacting via a shared protocol. I suppose the
units (people, objects, spaces) do not need a protocol, as long as
there is some way by which we are able to recognize them as connected.

Would people be participatory in the network? Or would it be self
contained? We decided it would be funner if the students were involved
in the network. We would change them into "nodes", and they would act
out our protocol.

Our network would be divided between speakers and sounds. A person with
a sound would jack in to a speaker and thus realize their sound. We
were faced with many questions, such as: should the speaker have one or
two audio ins? Will the network of sounds be built in serial, mesh, or
parallel? Will each sound be equal? Could this network be disruptive?

We ended up deciding on 5 sounds. An ipod provides the sound,
which plugs into a box which has audio in and out. Each sound box
has two audio ins, so sound boxes can jack serially, joining up
to a cacophony of five sounds. Our speaker box has one audio in.
Finally we added a mixer, a unit which could receive two sounds, outputs
one, but is able to control which of the two sounds it is playing. The
mixer is unique in that it has control over itself and others.




Building the network was great fun. The boxes were purchased from The
Container Store, and are made of clear plastic so we could see inside.
The audio is all done with 1/4" jacks so we get a sexy "click" sound and
definitive tactile feel. The sounds are stored on ipods, which are put
into their wearers pocket, and the sounds are looped on one track. The
mixer control is just a potentiometer, and the speaker was ripped out of
a radio. Ithai composed each of the five sounds so they would sound
natural in any combination.

5 sounds
1 mixer
2 speakers

I think there are many ways to view our network. Do the people
define the network? Or is it the interconnected audio boxes? Or a
unique combination of both? The audio boxes physically connect people
via cables. The subjects are induced to interact, for example, in order
to express themselves the "sounds" must jack into a speaker. There are
two speakers to choose from, so do previous relationships show
themselves when a familiar face is chosen over another?

In his writings about Actor Network Theory, Bruno emphasizes how it is
important to measure how objects, not humans, interact. The sound which
is carried over the audio lines is a representation of exactly what
Bruno seeks to quantize, the audio is carried by the actors initially
unconsciously. Only when the units come together does a network form,
and the sound is a measurable way to quantify their relation.

Sound 1
Sound 2
Sound 3
Sound 4
Sound 5










-- Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:40 -0400

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