One day only open house! The experimental outdoor laboratory open house was held July 29, 2006, 4-8pm. This event was an interdisciplinary project with sculptor Bruce Beasley, who lent his space for this 34-channel environment of sound. The reflecting pool was the site of a spinning and floating soundscape, using wind sensors to impart energy to the musical textures as appropriate, returning to stiller textures during the calm moments, and swirling with later-afternoon wind gusts.

Using trademark transducers attached to the surfaces of the bronze and stainless steel sculptures, fields of sound radiate outwards. Soundpads and digital T-amps courtesy of Sonic Impact. The compositional ideas reflect the nature of the material and the essence of its weight and heft and volumes. Blocks of sound are created in response to the volumes defined by Bruce Beasley's welded metal. Their intersection creates transitions from one musical texture to another, shifting pitch, reverberation characteristics and instrumental profiles as intense blocks of sound are projected outwards.

And a new concept debuted as part of this project: singing birdcages. Each bamboo birdcage is fitted with a transducer. Six of them hang from tree branches, swinging in the wind. Each sounds through a computer-controlled system melding a string instrument with an actual bird song. The naturally occuring rhythms and improvisational forms of selected birds will be cross-pollinated with techniques from Japanese koto and shamisen, Chinese pipa and guqin, and other musical universes. Each virtual bird is capable of learning, and will evolve its soundworld as it learns rhythms from the environment around it. Click to see a low-res quicktime movie.