Endless Connections

In a manmade environment that we have equipped completely with appliances, our organic antennas are losing their abilities to detect, filter, and orient information. Staying outdoors in nature has become an exception and when we escape the overflow of information from our fellow humans. We certainly need both the natural and artificial parts of our world. But how can the two spheres approach each other? What can we learn from natural patterns and how can we, in reverse, introduce artificial structures to nature?

Endless Connections was an installation created within a workshop about manmade and natural sound. Composite interactive systems were created that integrated simple custom microprocessors, motors, lights, and sound recorders. The program featured a new generation of custom ‘smart actuator interface’ microprocessors developed by the LASG engineering team. A new dynamic software interface provided primary controls and behaviour scripting for the physical devices.

Participants under the direction of workshop leaders Philip Beesley, Rob Gorbet and Anne Paxton engaged in a series of experiments with the aim of creating a hybrid soundscape, bridging nature’s orchestra with artificially created sounds and tones. The installation was set within a high stone barn space, situated within Boisbuchet’s unique environment of experimental architecture and nature. A performance extended the installation into adjacent landscape locations including a grove of trees surrounded by fields, and a terrace bordered with stone walls adjacent to the barn space.

A Hybrid Soundscape