SONIC HUTS FOR A CONE

Location: Mobile
Type: Commission
Structure: Fiberglass, Copper, GFRC
Year: 2017
Team: Alihan Oney

Resonant Fields

The Sonic Huts create acoustic environments for a Bronze Bell Cone from the artist Harmen Brethouwer. These are sculptures and can be struck by a mallet to produce a resonant frequency. The huts act as chambers that intensify an aesthetic experience that is both visual and aural in relation to the fields these objects create. They are also small architectural objects that through their presence in their sites condition the experience through visual image, processional sequence, and body positioning.

The Collector hut begins with the idea of several slightly different acoustic pods hidden inside an apparently solid square object. The exterior is clad in a thin lightweight cement board that has been tooled with a pattern suggestive of other mineral based materials. This gives the entire object the appearance of a floating heavy mass hovering above a series of legs that form the structure. One enters the hut by ducking under the mass at a central bay that is free from the ground. Each pod is clad in copper and creates different sonic experiences by gathering the tones of the bell’s lower regions and focusing them closer to ear height. The listener turns away from the visual experience of the cone and faces the aural experience within each of the eight pods surrounding the cone.

The Reflektor hut begins with the idea of a circular reflecting bowl hidden inside a solid square object. Upon entering the object at the corner, a space for circulation exists within a hollow poché between the square and bowl. At the opposite corner from the entry is an opening into the interior of the bowl, which passes back to an exterior space surround the cone. This opening provides the first visual contact with the cone. The entire interior of the bowl is clad in a copper reflecting surface. The bowl is slightly lopsided which changes the height of the most intense tones as one walks around the bowl. The surface can also be sat into, with the sonic experience completely enveloping the listener as the height of the head registers different fields emanating from the object.

The Transistor hut completely separates the auditory and visual sensations of the Bronze Bell Cone. The cone can be seen from the outside as it sits between two funnels that frame the object. These two volumes are circular at the top and diamond shaped at the bottom, a transition of surface geometry which moves from focused to scattered. Depending on where the listener’s head is, specific frequencies are either intensified, or all harmonics are drowned out into white noise. Since the bell must be struck from outside, the sound is experienced as one ducks to place one’s head into the funnel, a sonic experience that shifts from noise to tone as the listener stands up.