Auditory Tactics :: Pictures of the installation :: Concordia University

The loudspeaker array is shown in this picture.

"Auditory Tactics" receive the financial support of Sherbrooke city

Today, Philippe-Aubert Gauthier received the confirmation of a grant obtained from Sherbrooke city (Québec, Canada) for "Auditory Tactics". The artist wish to acknowledge this financial support of Sherbrooke which greatly help the project and its public presentation.

The program is known as "Bourses aux artistes et artisans d'art amabssadeurs ou en émergence". For more informations on the program:
http://ville.sherbrooke.qc.ca/
http://ville.sherbrooke.qc.ca/fr/citoyens/communique/index.cgi?COMM=boursesartistes07

Examples of sound beams

Here are some exemples of theoretical simulations of what a beam can look like for our 16-loudspeakers configuration. In the following figure, the loudspeakers are denoted by square markers. Three directivity plots (with a linear scale, which is different from logarithmic scale or the human hearing scale) are shown for three different beams directed at various angles. These directivity patterns are computed for 220Hz.

The following figures presents a beam in an horizontal plane. Note that the sound is train of 5 consecutive impulses so that these includes all the frequencies. X and Y axis are expressed in meters. The color scale represents the sound pressure (in Pascals). Clearly, the sound radiation is more intense in a given direction. This direction corresponds to the beam angle and depends on the time delays between the loudspeakers.

Tactiques auditives - Auditory Tactics

Philippe Pasquier & Philippe-Aubert Gauthier, 2007
August 22nd – September 22nd, 2007
22 août – 22 septembre 2007
Presented by Vidéographe and the Faculty of Fine Arts
at L'OEuvre ouverte | Congrès PureData Convention 07

Building EV, St-Catherine and Guy, Montréal, Québec, Canada

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“Auditory Tactics” is the result of the first collaboration between Philippe Pasquier and Philippe-Aubert Gauthier. Created during an artistic residency in sound and media art at Vidéographe's PARC laboratory, the installation is presented at L'OEuvre ouverte | PureData Convention 07.

By “Auditory Tactics” we mean the adaptive strategies developed for new or complex auditory tasks, sometimes tied to specific life, work, urban or architectural conditions, handicaps or other constraints.

The beamforming method (see below, in an other message) used in “Auditory Tactics” involves a non-intrusive, site-specific application of acoustical techniques based on directive projections of sound onto architectural surfaces. By doing so, they propose their very first experimentation in public space with the use of this technology.

A generative composition over 24h, evolving everyday is audible in the corridor. Entirely generated from human voices and sounds, the installation fosters the intrusion of private and intimate sounds in the public sphere that will interfere with the usual and appropriate “Auditory Tactics” of the audience.

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«Tactiques auditives» est le produit d’une première collaboration entre Philippe Pasquier et Philippe-Aubert Gauthier. Réalisée lors d’une résidence en art sonore et médiatique au laboratoire PARC de Vidéographe, l’installation est présentée dans le cadre L'OEuvre ouverte | Congrès PureData 07.

L'expression «tactiques auditives» peut signifier les stratégies développées pour accomplir des tâches auditives complexes ou nouvelles, parfois liées aux conditions spécifiques de vie, de travail, au contexte urbain ou même architectural, et pour, entre autres, surmonter ou contourner des difficultés auditives, des handicaps ou des contraintes extérieures.

Ces deux artistes et chercheurs universitaires ont mis à profit leur expertise pour construire un proto-système de projection de faisceaux sonores inspiré (voir plus bas dans un message consacré au «beam forming») des recherches sur les sphères d’écoute en acoustique appliquée et télécommunications. Ils présentent ici, dans un lieu public, les premières expérimentations artistiques de cette technologie en développement.

Une composition générative se déroulant sur 24 heures et se renouvelant tous les jours viendra ainsi occuper le corridor. Entièrement générée à partir de voix humaines, cette intrusion sonore de la sphère sonore privée dans les tactiques auditives publiques propose une imbrication poétique entre le vécu des passants et l’espace architectural et social du lieu choisi.

Auditory Tactics :: Pictures

"Auditory Tactics" is a sound installation based on a 16-loudspeaker array. Here is some pictures of the array developped for the artistic residency at Vidéographe (Montréal, Canada) in preparation of the Pure-Data Convention 2007. The artists acknowledge to work of Yann Pasco who constructed the array.

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Auditory Tactics :: Description

As a first experiment of a serie on spatial sound in public spaces, “Auditory Tactics”, the sound installation, stems from a collaboration of Philippe Pasquier and Philippe-Aubert Gauthier for an exploratory work while the artists were in residency (Vidéographe, Montréal, Canada). The artists created a compact loudspeaker array for acoustical beam forming as a spatial sound platform. Using the array and specifically created Pure-Data pacthes, the hyperdirective sound beams can be steered at various angles from the loudspeaker array. The two sound artists work and explore the notions of public and private auditory spheres while producing private listening areas using the sound beams. Locally projecting a sound, a voice as an example, as it is the case for these “Auditory Tactics”, in a space populated by moving noises and voices, is connected to the general and common strategy of listening delimitation (the cut of of a private sphere, possibly secret, in public spheres, communicative). Such sound projection techniques, soon passing in the real world, will contribute to the general reconstruction process of listening and speech, auditory practices and strategies, as cultural fashionable objects. With the intentions of questionning such issues, the artists created a sound composition based on interaction with the public, fragment of altered, cutted and transformed voice samples, as marks that put communication technologies on spoken and listened language as a cultural, plastic product. The main intention is then to explore and engage the social and human evocations, behind the technological possibilities, of beam forming and new spatial sound technologies in the social field. The artists acknowledge Yann Pasco for the fabrication of the loudspeaker array.

Presenting "Auditory Tactics"

Invited for an artist residency at Vidéographe (Montréal, Canada), Philippe Pasquier and Philippe-Aubert Gauthier decide to create an interactive sound installation based on compact loudspeaker array and beam forming. The installation will be publicly presented in Concordia University (Montréal, Canada) for the Pure-Data Convention 2007.