the megaphone project

The megaphone project is a multi-layered installed and performed work that uses strong visual sculptural symbols to facilitate interaction between listening and sound creation. 24 red horns (megaphones) of varying sizes and on stands create a striking field within any existing landscape. On this level, the work is a sculptural installation.

The megaphones have embedded circuits in the base that are wirelessly linked to each other and coordinated through a custom software environment that records and plays back captured material. The attendant sound is an element that interacts with their visual placement. Wider spacing creates change within the required audio architecture and vice versa. On this level, the work is a sound work, with many possible diffusive variations.

The megaphones create a field for performance, inviting physical interaction from the public, as well as the possibility for choreographic work. In each setting of the work, there have been immediate and compelling responses from every child aged 18 months and up (and nearly all adults). They engage with the megaphones intuitively by: speaking through, singing in, shouting in, listening to, seeing through and climbing in. Small children climb into the large horns and run from horn to horn. Performers facilitate engagement with the horns by giving “performative permission” to the public. They create a phenomenon that creates an environment of play and enjoyment.

The artistic modes range between performance, and the reading of an interactive visual and sonic sculpture. The whole event remains a “multi-layered” experience that is inherently a multi-arts event.

the human canon for experimenta international biennial of media art Playground Exhibition

http://experimenta.org/playground

Canon: from the Greek Kanon (rule).

In music, a simple contrapuntal form, with at least one imitation

The green, oddly familiar shape of an overblown cochlear megaphone lies breathing on the floor. The human canon teases the concept of the megaphone as a sound amplifier for the human voice suggesting an encountering of objects as sound makers in a way that is subversively actually about intimate listening in public space. Here the oversized megaphone is the collector of human sounds. Traces of sound are left in the megaphone by all who enter. The custom made software and hardware collects vocal sounds made within the megaphone, and adds the sound to the well of sound that is collected from previous interactions by audience. The recorded sounds of others who have been in the megaphone before, are intimately played back within the megaphone as part of a large scale time texture: sounds are simultaneously captured and re-played to be part of this ever- growing sound canon.

This interaction between public listening and sound creation is a central concern of the artists, and as such this work is part of an ongoing collaboration between Madeleine Flynn, Tim Humphrey and Jesse Stevens and performers David Wells and Sally Smith entitled the megaphone project.

Illustration 1: Screen shot of PD patch front end