Transcript Aural Architecture Contributes to the Experience of Space and Place Dr. Barry Blesser Dr.

Aural Architecture Contributes to
the Experience of Space and Place
Dr. Barry Blesser
Dr. Linda-Ruth Salter
www.SpacesSpeak.com
5/20/2010
Blesser-Salter © 2010
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Part I: Sensing Your Location
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Where are you now?
How do you know?
How do you feel?
Where do you want to be?
We will provide the concepts that answer
these questions from an aural perspective.
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Inside a Physical and Social Space
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Sensory Deprivation: Spaceless
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Senses Determine Your Location
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Senses have different properties:
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Area of coverage
Duration and time
Transport mechanism
Source that can be sensed
Robust or fragile
Cognitive fusing of sensory contributions
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Sensory Anthropology
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Hausa culture’s view of senses
Functional definition, not biology
Cultural relativism
You are how you live
Cognitive strategies of preference
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Uniqueness of Sound
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Flows around obstacles, into openings
Reveals the interior state of objects
Requires action energy to create
Contains time sequence, never static
Can radiate over distance
Multiple sources overlap
No respect for private property
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Uniqueness of Hearing
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More than for music and speech
Evolutionary optimization for survival
Echolocation among many species
Control of direction of visual focus
No ear-lids, involuntary access
Emotional connection to people
Broadcasts high speed actions
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Hearing Serves a Function
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Instant awareness of dynamic events
Emotional channel in social context
Experience of disability workers
Elderly in 1950s English study
Functional deafness is event isolation
Embedded in a movie space
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Definition of an Eventscape
An aural event is a natural, intentional, or
accidental conversion of mechanical
energy into sound, which is then
broadcast to the inhabitants of a space.
An eventscape is the composite of
temporal & spatial distributed dynamic
events that are transported to listeners.
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Soundscape as Eventscape
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Natural & human events create sound
Events can be located in space
Sonic Language based on events
Embedded in an event panorama
Events compete for our attention
Event identify, evokes place
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Initial Answers to Questions
Q: Where are you now?
A: Embedded in social and physical worlds
composed of static objects (landscape)
and dynamic activities (eventscape).
Q: How do you know where you are?
A: By hearing events and seeing objects.
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Evaluating Eventscapes
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Each listener uses unique criteria
A sonic event may be
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Pleasing or distracting
Helpful or irrelevant
Comforting or threatening
Events compete for limited resources
Aural combat and sonic niches
Cognitive loading and arousal
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Part II: Aural Architecture
Definition: The aural influence of passive
objects and geometries on the emotions,
perceptions, and behavior of inhabitants of
a space.
Every space has both an acoustic and aural
architecture, but they describe different
properties of the space.
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Experiencing Aural Architecture
1. Divides a space into separate and
independent eventscapes.
2. Changes aural character of events as
they move from source to listener.
3. Like a landscape, objects can be
experienced directly when “illuminated”
by sonic events.
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Influence of Aural Architecture
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Modifies emotional connections
Influences behavior of inhabitants
Winners and losers in aural combat
Cultural preferences: politicized
Auditory spatial awareness is learned
Inadequacy of common language
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Auditory Spatial Awareness
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Singer in Howes Cavern
Baboon in African Cave
Lunch crowd at busy pub
Ear training with hand clapping sequence:
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Dry
Bathroom
Living room
Water tank
Large atrium
Reflecting wall
Dry
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Spatiality without a Space
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Language of Aural Architecture
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Social spatiality
Navigational spatiality
Musical spatiality
Aesthetic spatiality
Symbolic spatiality
Others yet to be discovered
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Social Spatiality
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Acoustic arenas and horizons
Citizenship in French villages
Dining at restaurant
Children in backyard
Activities in living room
Privacy by shrinking arenas
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One Aural (Social) Space
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Social Measures of Distance
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Intimate (lover)
Personal (good friend)
Conversational (colleague)
Public (lecturer, musician)
Does social distance match acoustic horizon?
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Navigational Spatiality
Hearing passive objects & geometries
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Open door way
Nearby wall
Rugs and upholstery
Size of closet, cave, cathedral
Low ceiling
Curved and domed surfaces
Volume of enclosed space
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Blind Teenagers in Mountains
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Musical Spatiality
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Reverberation as temporal spreading
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Reverberation as spatial spreading
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Meta-instruments incorporates temporal spreading
Created by performance space (recording studio)
Enveloping reverberation as aural caffeine
Created in reproduction topology and space
Artistic space: with contradictions
Musical rules in electro-acoustic space
Concert hall does it all: historic artifact
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Stockhausen in Jeta Caves
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1930s and Dry Spaces (HiFi)
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Aesthetic Spatiality
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Unique local acoustics
Spatial variety and diversity
Aural wallpaper
Reduces sensory boredom
Often artifact of visual embellishments
Spatial niches with unique personality
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Sempere’s Sculpture in Madrid
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Symbolic Spatiality
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Acquires meaning from cultural exposure
Linked to other senses
Earcon as parallel to icon
Often acquires religious meaning
Examples:
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Bell sounds in pre-Columbian Mexico
Aeolian harp: wind creates music of spheres
Pyramids at Kukulkan as sacred Quetzal bird
Cathedral as God’s home
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Shrine at Chester Cathedral
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Part III: Everyone Has Choices
Aural architecture looks at the dynamic relationship
between people and place, mediated through hearing.
The Eventscape
Internal mental representation and external physical world
(sonic events and aural architecture).
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Designers Make Choices
Designers make choices about the permanent physical
qualities of a space.
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Inhabitants Make Choices
Inhabitants make choices about how they will
experience a space:
•Willingly enter
•Choose to avoid
•Shut themselves off
•Adjust the contents
•Modify locations
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Technology Provides Choices
Changing technologies give us more
choices.
Choices affect how we hear space.
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From Amphitheaters to iPods
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Basilica of Saint Apollinaris
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Notre Dame 12th-14th C
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Early Music Salons
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Sydney Opera House 1973
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Transporting a Sonic Event
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Moving a sonic event to new space
Dry source without spatial acoustics
Listeners remain in local eventscape
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Eventscape Transports the Listener
Modern electronics can now create a complete
(natural and virtual) eventscape in video games,
headphones, movie theaters, home theaters, and
automobiles.
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Menu of Aural Experiences
Technology offers designers and inhabitants
choices about the kind of aural spaces that will be
experienced.
Let’s not focus on the technology, but rather on
the array of choices and their implications for
the experience of the aural space.
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Overlaid Eventscapes
Existing in multiple eventscapes
(aural spaces) at the same time
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Functional deafness
Democratic
Individual control
Double exposure
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Combat in the Eventscape
Dueling auditory arenas, shared resource, power
matters, social isolation, trance-like state.
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Multiple Eventscapes in Daily Life
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Uniform Globalized Spaces
Shopping malls from around the world
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Who’s in Charge?
Answer: both designers and inhabitants
control the eventscape
Designers can influence the aural horizons of
the inhabitants.
Inhabitants adapt to the acoustic properties
created by the designers.
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Insiders & Outsiders
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Outsiders
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Architects, planners, designers and artists create
spaces with physical acoustics and embedded sounds
Space creators are seldom the inhabitants of a space,
and the eventscape cannot be controlled by outsiders
Insiders
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Inhabit the space during their daily lives
They experience the eventscape, which includes the
sounds created by all ephemeral inhabitants
Modify when possible to suit preferences
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Eventscapes: Season to Taste
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Summary & Conclusion
Do not focus exclusively on external concrete
forms or internal mental experiences.
The interaction between the two is important:
the aural experience of a space.
With common concepts & language, dialog
and compromise become possible.
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