Previous |
Next |
April 17, 2008, 02:53 PM ET
Playing Soon at Tufts U.: Soundgarden
The library at Tufts U. will feature a sound sculpture, from which visitors can hear sounds from around Boston. (Courtesy of Tufts U.)
Most sculptures are meant to be seen. But this month Tufts University unveils a sculpture designed to be heard.
Harmony in the Age of Noise, which will be installed on the roof of the university’s library, is a little tricky to describe. Its creators call it a sonic observation post. Tufts’s efforts to explain what that means involve opaque terms like parabolic gazebo and psychoacoustic maps.
Testing the sound dial
Basically, it will be a structure under which visitors can listen to sounds from one of three sources: a live feed from outside a campus building, student-made recordings from around Boston, or sound clips people have uploaded to the projects Web site. The online component will allow a person to send a message to someone else by having the recipient stand under the gazebo at a specified time.
Creating that experience requires technical precision. The structure is designed so that sounds can be heard beneath it, but not outside, and visitors will use a digital sound dial to choose the sound they want to hear.
The project, put together with help from Tufts students and a local Brownie troop, was dreamed up by a Tufts anthropology professor, David Guss, and a sound artist, Bruce Odland. In a culture that they say privileges visual information, Harmony is intended as an intense sonic exploration of our world, according to Mr. Guss. Yet he admits it’s tough to explain the effort without relying on words that have to do with sightlike gazebo, which, by the way, is thought to be a corruption of the Latin for I shall see.
After the exhibit at Tufts, Mr. Guss and Mr. Odland hope the installation can move to a different campus. If that works out, another college will have to explain what the heck it is.—Beckie Supiano
Add Your Comment
Commenting is closed.