Transforming Sound into a tactile experience

Imagine hiking up a mountain, passing through rocks and trees until you reach a viewpoint. As
you sit down, almost breathless, you take in the beauty around you – the vast blue sky above,
the flowing river below, and the lush greenery surrounding you, accompanied by the vibrant colors and scents of spring. While others might continue to describe their experience made up of layers of sound – the birds, the water, the crickets, the leaves… my attention will be given to the absence of “noise.” The translation and filling of this gap between silence and noise, interwoven in many layers of form, texture, color, and space, became my driving force behind this research.

Initiating collaborative research projects, WDIH? (2021) and HRS (2022-2024) aimed to create haptic environments by embedding technological tools for sensory translation in the architecture of spaces where art is presented, making the works accessible to sensory-diverse audiences.

At the beginning of my research (2016) on tactile perception, children at the REACH school for the deaf in Kolkata were asked to listen to recordings of nature, animals, houses, and the city. Together with them, I discovered colors and depths in the sounds of nature that I could never have imagined. Since then, I have desired to create a tactile space that brings nature with all its magic into the room.

The 4th installation of Haptic Room Studies focuses on tactile spatialization and the distinction between hearing and listening, emphasizing how tactile listening encourages active engagement. The Haptic Room study installation transforms sound into a tactile experience using a multi-channel haptic sound system. However, the spatial arrangement of the installation using ‘haptic speakers’ presents challenges as it restricts the impact to areas in direct contact with the body. Participants are encouraged to actively engage with the environment.

For this installation, I chose to collaborate with A Sound Map of the Housatonic River, a composition by the artist Annea Lockwood. What intrigued and challenged me about this piece, comprising four channels, is its ability to craft an immersive sense of place and time. It weaves a linear narrative, drawing from the concept of traversing (map) along, in, and over the river.

Adi Hollander, January 24

Credits

Haptic Room Study #4 – Questions about Tactile Spatialization: Between Hearing and Active Listening was commissioned and supported by the Echonance festival

Project by Adi Hollander in collaboration with Annea Lockwood
Sound engineer: Mathieu Debit
Project assistant: Miroslav Zach
Graphic Design: Anni Ruffin
Sound System and software design: Andreas Tegnander
Tactile units: Adi Hollander, Ildikó Horváth, & Andreas Tegnander, and
Sungeun Lee
Thanks: Andreas Tegnander, Claudio F. Baroni, Giorgos Gripeos, Ildikó Horváth, Sungeun Lee

A Sound Map of the Housatonic River

Annea Lockwood, commissioned by Jenny Hersch in 2008 for the unfinished project museum, dedicated to the river, a project in development in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.

This sonic map follows the course of the Housatonic River, from its sources in the Berkshire Mountains to the mouth at Milford, Long Island Sound. Annea Lockwood, captivated by the multi-layered complexity of river sounds, has dedicated years to exploring them. Hearing and feeling these sounds offer a different experience from a visual scan – a more intimate one. The energy flow of a river becomes palpable through the sounds created by the friction between the current and riverbed, current and riverbank.

Employing stereo microphones and underwater hydrophones, Lockwood captures the gentle yet powerful sounds of the water, along with the noises of insects, birds, and occasional humans encountered along the way. On one level, the river is a paradox – small, approximately 150 miles, and seemingly pristine, yet marred by pollution, especially with invisible substances like PCBs. The pollution, even after the closure of paper mills and GE’s battery factories, has led locals to turn away from the river.

While some activities like swimming, boating, canoeing, and fishing persist, the usual human pleasures associated with rivers seem notably absent. Lockwood was delighted when, during a recording near a pond in spring, she captured the distant echoes of kids’ voices cycling through the woods. She focused entirely on the changing textures of the water, becoming captivated by the complex beauty of water timbres – the layers, the hidden pitch patterns. This fascination led her to concentrate predominantly on the river itself.

Lockwood feels that the Sound Maps capture these rivers at specific times, each site at a specific moment, which can’t be taken as “representative” of some whole, not even the site itself.

Tactile Units Used in This Project:
Porcelain Membrane: Crafted from porcelain tiles, wooden frames, and rubberconnectors, this durable material exhibits exceptional sonic qualities. It conducts and transmits a detailed tactile map of a sound’s complexity, including frequency, rhythm, timbre, and dynamics.

VibroRaised-Relief: Wooden Floor Tiles: Fundamental to architectural space, the flooris designed for participants to experience sound spatialization. Each floor tile incorporates four speakers, creating a dynamic “sound landscape.” Different vibrations transmit through the body as individuals traverse different areas, simultaneously enabling spatial storytelling and complex sensations from multiple sources.

Reservations