Thesis Journal vol.3 wk4 – Cornell Box, Brainswarming Session and Experiments

This week, I put together a Cornell Box using various wood samples I collected during my apprenticeship in a bass guitar making shop. Resonance is the key to making a musical instrument. Sonic resonance comes from more energy sustain. With the variety of woods combination, it is possible to create a vehicle for a wider range of sequences to live and sustain, hence resulting a better tone.

In the beginning of the box creation. I worked with various personal items associated with sense of nature, texture and resonance. The result is a kind of a habitat that I will describe. As I was consciously fill a space in a photo frame. With more practice and free arrangement that I started to think about bring vertical volume and it became a 3D photo. My take was not to think about a box as a confinement but a structural foundation to work with something bigger. Almost architectural and spacious that will grow vertically and possibly organically.

My Cornell Box is dealing with question of how to create resonance in a space. The elevated wooden beams are inspired by the free-standing trilithons of Stonehenge, two bulkier vertical Sarsens joined by one lintel. In my Cornell Box, I envisioned a pace where a person can experience sound both in sonic and haptic way. Various wooden floor resonance in different frequencies and vibrate while stepping on it. Lying on the wooden floor can be a healing experience. Body parts are flowed with energy, and vibrate in different speeds. The lintels connect at the top of Sarsens and work together to confine the vibration created in the space. Allowing energy to flow freely in the space.

In this week, Carrie, Despina, Andrew and Graig gave me wonderful advices on my thesis. With Andrew, we tapped into the topic from the physics point of view. In observer effect, when we change the way we look at things, things change. The geek world unfold and I found a whole new different perspective to look at conscious and reality. In Craig’s office hour where I was encouraged to ask the ultimate question that I want to ask for myself. What is that question and in what ways it resonates with me?

In my brainswarming session, I first examined my design experiment proposals on the middle section where I have listed down my intensions accordingly. From bottom up, I think of the experience of wanting to listen to a radio in my hometown (Taiwan) as a comfort living abroad. The kind of experience sparks a resonance to a place, a time, similar to tasting a craving dish from your hometown. When I listen to the radio, thru the frequency, I was offered a space to think about my memories in various places in Hualien with friends and family. The feeling has been particularly strong during the past year (COVID) which I find myself meditating and experiencing of resonance with a place, a person, a moment. Personally, it is such a true bodily experience, at this particular moment, a sense of self (a topic that was raised after speaking with Despina) is what I would describe when something is resonating to me in this way and I wonder if that’s what others will agree with this connection.

Finally, I created sound experiments to experience moments in park using audio recording. Please welcome to join to my playlists of antiant in soundcloud. The idea is to record sound in a park in random places where I find a sound signature(s). The sound environment and focus while recording was vivid and all-around-you. I often hear birds singing from multiple trees around me, that’s what I mean all-around-you. Once it’s recorded, when I listen to it, I intuitively turn to search for patterns, such as pitch and rhythmic sound signatures. There are often details that I never expect at the moment when I record them and I find sounds that are familiar to me in an interesting way. For example the leafs blow by the wind made reminiscent sound when you open a candy wrapper. I’d very much like to know what my audience will hear from them and how they think about the recordings. My next experiment(s) could be to record myself in different conditions or with different filters. Or listen to my voice recording in different conditions or with different filters.