To tackle the issue of noise pollution, Warszawa’s panGenerator brought immersive, spatial sound to the philharmonic. But they didn’t make that spatial audio virtual: tracks, skateboard motors, and speakers on karts put this installation into physical motion.
Noise Surround System traveled to MDF Festival and the Philharmonic of Szczecin, one of Poland’s top three noisiest cities. Noise pollution is a serious problem that can exacerbate stress, disturb sleep, and produce hearing loss.
Of course, sound artists can put noise to a purpose. And so it is that the normally cocooned-off Philharmonic space is beautifully disturbed with speakers on tracks. (Hey, I have an idea for a really aggressive alarm clock.) That challenges the idea of the concert space as palace, instead colliding with the urban environment. And as you can see in the video, it all coalesces into something harmonious, featuring the sounds of the orchestra.
From panGenerator’s description:
The installation is a rather large structure of 4,5m in height and about 7m of diameter that allows the audience to get surrounded by the spatialised audio emitted from the 8 motorised trolleys of bespoke design that were engineered from scratch for the purpose of this project. The audiovisual choreography is driven by custom software that remotely controls the light, sound and movement. In terms of sound design we used sounds sampled from the noisiest parts of Szczecin and transformed them in realtime using dedicated pure data audio patch – controlling the playback in sync with movement and light emitted by the trolleys.
Everything was custom-built here, including control software built in Node.js and Electron, plus Krzysztof’s own Pd patch for sound. A Raspberry Pico Pi acts as the brain, connected to a main computer via WiFi, as electric skateboard motors drive the speakers around the tracks. 8 independent audio channels are transmitted over RF to the carts, freeing the speakers to roll around without wires.
“We even designed dedicated charging pantographs using servos to re-charge the batteries,” says
panGenerator’s Jakub Koźniewski, who tells us about their project. (That’s right – like making your own electric rail/tram system.) “Looking back, we were kind of insane doing this!”
The innards of the carts, revealed:
And the control software, in action:
Check the full description. Long-time readers know I’ve regularly covered panGenerator’s projects – they’re one of the rare media art houses with a real passion for sound and sonic invention.
https://pangenerator.com/projects/noise-surroundsystem
Previously: