The sound sculpture of Wendy Wu

My intention

I want to create a space that mixes the real sculpture and fictitious light from the projections together. With the participation of audiences, the sound is formed. It is a sound sculpture created by myself and the attendance of audiences.

The sculpture is about life and nature. I will put some elements related to the nature and new life. With the attendance of audiences, the sound will be produced. All the behaviors of audiences are recorded by sensors and the changes of elements projected are actually controlled by the programming.

My intention about this project is to invite my audiences to feel the power of nature and immerse in this fantasy world.

Who will be my audience

Students, teachers and others who are interested in the sound project.

The media and techniques

I choose the projection to unfold the illusory work controlled by the programming. First, I need to create some elements which could represents the different kinds of plants. For the way of demonstrating those elements, I choose to put the projector outside to project elements onto the sculpture directly. When the audiences attend the project, their movement will cause the sound of different “reactions” in nature. So, I need a sensor to detect the movement of the audience and transfer that information to the computer to do the work about programming. The programming is responsible for the random change of elements and the sound.

Except the projectors and sensors, I plan to make a real sculpture by 3D printer which will be placed in the center of the area. Also, dark walls, ceilings and ground are needed inside the space. All of these elements (light from projections, sensors, sound made by programming and attendance of audiences, dark environment and the real sculpture) could provide an immersing experience and create a more complete atmosphere for the artwork.

The process of idea development

Because my inspiration came from one of the shows held by TeamLab, my initial idea was to project elements to the whole dark area (including four walls, ceiling and the floor). But I gradually found it was so hard to do it with the deepening of research. Fig1. shows my first idea.

For the first idea, I need to buy over 6 projectors. Also, the environment should be quite dark so that the fancy atmosphere can be created.

So, I made a new idea (fig 2). The biggest change for this sketch is that the elements should be projected on the sculpture, instead of the walls. Also the program and the sensors are still needed to realize the projection effect.

The shape and the size of the sculpture I had not decided at that time.  I had several images for the sculpture: a plaster model for a person (but the relationship between my intention and the shape of the sculpture is not so close), and a plastic horse (transparent or semi-transparent surface in order to allow projected light to go through the sculpture onto the wall).

For the third idea (fig 3), I changed the materials for the sculpture in order to create a transparent surface. Also, I decided to put the projectors inside. But the shape was still not decided.

For the fourth idea (fig 4), the shape of the sculpture was determined to be the seed, because the seed is the beginning of all life and is also closely connected to my intention.

The first draft of the projection and elements also confirmed that the original prototype had real photos of flowers and plants. I searched some pictures from the Internet and collected some pictures I took and then pixelated them. The reason for the pixelation is that the project not only embodies the power of nature, but also closely combines with the technology. The pixelated elements can add the sense of technology to the whole project. The first draft and original photos of elements are shown below.

In the fifth idea (fig 6.), I decided to put the sculptures (a big sculpture changed into several small sculptures) on the floor and pave some soil, or other materials similar to soil, to create the sense of the natural environment. And the projectors were still put inside (because of the change of the sculptures, I needed some more projector to achieve the effect in this draft).

Then I came to my final idea (fig 7.). First rub the spheres and hemispheres made of plastic by abrasive paper to make them look more matte. Then pave coconut fiber or sand to imitate soil because those materials are more convenient to arrange. Inside the spheres, I put some cotton to make the light softer. Also, the cotton has close relationship with the beginning of the nature, a part of my intention. A program and a sensor are still responsible for the change of the projected images and the background music.

The process of making the project

(to be added later)

Artist I learn from

The inspiration of this sound project actually came from an exhibition which I attended last summer holiday, the teamLab. Founded in 2001, teamLab, a Japanese art and technology group, is an outstanding cross-field artist in the art world. They create immersive works with the use of light and sound, which let us see the extraordinary beauty of science and technology by attending an art exhibition.  Rooted in traditional Japanese arts and the modern form of animation, teamLab often borrows the many natural elements in the creation, such as flowers, butterflies, waterfalls, water wave, etc., through with the use of digital technology to create the elements of the large interactive devices to perceive space, explore the human behavior in the information age, and puts forward innovation for the evolution  of new social mode and thinking [1].

In my own design of the 1st project, both the use of sensors and programming are similar to those artworks made by teamLab. The reason I use these elements is they really bring an immersing feeling to audiences and combine visual art, sound and technology together.

My reflection

Through the whole process of creating this project, I changed my idea for 6 times. Some changes are intended to better illustrate my intention and some others are due to technical difficulties. In the beginning, when I just had the idea in my head, I planned to create an impressive dark environment for my reverberation project. However, I gradually found it was so hard and costly to finish my initial idea.

In addition, there was a great conflict between my intention (show the various and powerful nature) and the form of revealing. Those are all the reasons for improvement.

Another point I want to mention is that the programming for this project, which is responsible for changing the background music and the projected patterns, really helps a lot and also cost a lot of time. But it was worth it, because in effect I think it was quite successful.

[1] teamLab, teamLab*, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://www.teamlab.art/. [Accessed 10 6 2019].

The sound sculpture of Youyou Luo

Intro

During the last assessment week, I once went across the learner profile of IB and saw the world “well-balanced”. My heart suddenly dropped to the Bottom and I even stared to have a headache.

Not only the IB program, a lot of parents and other people expect their children to be “well-balanced”, they should not only get the highest score in their class or grade, but also good at sports or play some instrument, meanwhile they must grow up as a kind, friendly person, etc.

1

Since there are too many expectations from my teachers and parents, I got really tired every day for just being their ideal child. So, I chose to criticize “well-balanced” as my topic for this sound sculpture.

2

(explanation of PLAN A)

I chose to use the Chinese version of “well-balanced” which is “全面发展”as the main object because it is easier for me to make and I planned to do some splicing (further explanation later) that is easier to achive with Chinese characters.

Splicing of “全面发展“：Chinese characters could be separated by character components, and I decided to separate each word and put each components in different area in the room.

The sound sculpture takes place in a room (about 3m x 3m). When audiences enter the room, they’ll see different 3D pieces and they may not find out what these pieces refer to. But when they go across the room and stand on point X, they could figure out the whole word.

3

There are some “eyes” sticking on the walls, which represent the sense of teachers and parents are always keep watch on me ( and the audiences)

The whole room will be painted with wave lines to create an uncomfortable feeling。

4

The sound is emitted by each 3D pieces, they might be some horror sounds made by different instruments, or scream sounds of children. In addition, the sounds are recorded in advance and played irregularly.

5

The materials:

Chinese characters——wood

“Eyes”—— paper and wire

Wave lines——acrylic

#(explanation of PLAN B)

Everything is the same as PLAN A expect the method of hanging those Chinese characters. The difference is that for PLAN A, the characters are hung by strings, but for PLAN B I wanted to put remote control aircrafts in these characters so they can fly up automatically. I got the inspiration from one of the artwork from Studio Drift, called Drifter.

However, it might be very costly to buy the remote control aircrafts, also they need to be controlled by computer. So it is quite difficult to achieve, and I abandoned this plan.

6

Here are some detailed sketches of the Chinese characters, included the measurements.

7

Followed my plan, I made a small room by covering a size of 2*2*2 meters stand using paperboard.

And I found it is too monotonous from the outside.

8

So decided to put some construction site tape on the surface with the word “注意安全”（caution）, which fits the theme and means the people under stress have been silently told to be tread carefully.

9

For those Chinese characters hanging inside the room, I chose to use red lines because it represents the mood of pressure from those who hold infinite hope for us. Also I used red lines for those eyes to represent the same feeling.

10

You can watch the video to see the whole sculpture.

I recorded drum beats with different length, and it sounds like gunshots. It means we are constantly being knocked down by the pressure, then getting up, then knocked down again, and this continues in an infinite cycle.

11

Here is my impression after finishing the whole project:

“ I’d never tried to create a sound sculpture, and the Reverberation project helps me to get into a new field. The most impressive result is that I discovered the power of the sounds, which strengthens my work’s intention and the emotion I wanted to express.”

Youyou Luo

10 June, 2019