with Ginger Fan
41 Cooper Square, New York, NY 10003
May 6 – 10, 2024
Circuit, an exhibition and performance space in collaboration with Ginger Fan, housed a thirty-foot gutter downspout resonator that was played live through a mixer and left to drone perpetually during open hours.
Catalog Text
Julia Kim
Amerimax gutter downspouts are connected to form two lines that join at one end. Sponges are stacked underneath two regions on each side of the pipe to absorb shock between the aluminum and the floor while allowing them to bow and resonate freely in their centerpoints. Two contact microphones observe the vibration of the surface of the aluminum downspouts on each side of the triangulation. The microphones are plugged into a mixer, and the two signals are panned out to a pair of stereo computer speakers. Each side of the pipe is mixed to isolate either a mid-range or low-range frequency, based on the natural acoustic resonance of the feedback being produced. The signals are only being steered by the relative levels of their resonant frequencies (EQs and levels). No effects (like reverb, delay, pitch shift, or detune) are being imposed. The signals compound exponentially within the pipe due to vibration being pumped back into itself; the effect is a feedback loop.
The combination of both the mid-range and low-range frequencies vibrating from both sides of the pipe produces a difference tone in the room. The signals of the contact microphones are being pushed to the point of feedback, a sonic form that is distorted and dysfunctional in nature, where perceived loudness doesn’t increase proportionally with the sound intensity. This nature proposes an alternative exploitation of a mixer that is highly reliant on composing through active listening and anticipation. With two contact microphones in play, the two feedback drones are of unique resonant registers due to their differences in frequency and amplitude. This characteristic dynamic between the mid-range and low-range signal outputs facilitates a phasing in the room, akin to a humming drone, where both tones are hopping in and out of aural perception and beginning to sustain.
Due to the triangulated movement of air within the pipe structure, the breaching point between the feedback from one side to the other exists in the center tension. Although the structure houses two unilateral feedback outputs, these two signals will eventually meet, becoming a ceaseless, conglomerate drone. Once the frequencies of one side of the pipe trespass the elbow joint, leaking into the other side, a vibrational equilibrium settles. This coalescence can most clearly be heard when the mixing levels are being actively adjusted, as the output range of both signals are constantly shifting in a state of “tuning”.
Acoustics are rife with linearity. A system is considered linear if the equations that govern it follow the simple rule that the sum of the inputs to the system yields the sum of the outputs (Acoustics Today). When a signal is pushed to high amplitudes, distortion may be encountered yielding in an altered waveform and added harmonics. The sound-transmission process in the ear itself is characterized by nonlinear distortion at high sound intensities as hair cells within the inner ear have a tendency to process sound nonlinearly, even when the original sound wave is “clean”.
Hearing exists relative to one’s subjective cognitive and aural system as language exists as one’s adaptation to reality. Sonic phenomena explained within the scientific branch of physics exists as the system of language to describe the dynamics that persist within this technical facility, but is not necessary to internalize for any sense of a genuine encounter with sound. The language exists as an expansion of observation and a means to identify what will always remain ubiquitously mystical in the vibrating world.