A collaboration with interior designer and fiber artist Sammy Rupp of DLR Group.
Presented at TIME SPACE EXISTENCE exhibition hosted by the European Cultural Centre
in parallel with the 2025 Architecture Biennale in Venice, May 10 – November 23.
More info here: https://timespaceexistence.com/
Rupp’s research explored how designers can use tactile, visual, and acoustic elements to enhance user comfort and foster positive sensory stimulation for neurodivergent individuals.
more here: https://www.dlrgroup.com/firm-news/tactile-exhibit-time-space-existence/
I was invited to create a sound element for the installation.
A deconstructed 2-string bass instrument is mounted on a wood structure and is activated by arduino-driven motorized bows. Solid maple heads and bridges (the structures that hold the strings) transmit the sound vibrations directly to the wood structure in the space.
The entire room becomes the body of the instrument. The code that controls the motor contains an element of uncertainty, generating an ever-changing composition as it. Variations on the speed and direction of bowing coax subtle shifts and timbres from the low tones of the strings, sometimes breath-like, sometimes more forceful with blooming harmonics.
The bent-wood sculptures nestled in the soft forms provide access to more layers in the sonic space. By pressing one’s ear onto their surface, one can hear a wider spectrum of harmonics from the instruments through the materials of the structure.
Tactile sound.
Here is the instrument being tested in the structure at the offices of DLR Group in Portland. The whole structure was then dismantled, shipped, and rebuilt at Palazzo Bembo in Venice.
more information about the instrument see here: https://thessiamachado.com/portfolio/soundlings/