Seiko Mikami "World, Membrane and the Dismembered Body" [1-2]
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-(3) The Sense of Hearing
Upon entering the anechoic room, perhaps because sound is not at all
reflected, it's as if the visitor's ears are no longer living. To begin
with, the very shape of the ear gives the impression of being a kind of
atrophied fossil. Unlike the eye, the ear does not lend itself as easily
to metaphorical expressions, such as "keep your eyes open"; in the case
of the ear there is no sense that one "keeps open" one's ears. Human ears
don't work according to one's will. While the eye can intercept the flow
of information by closing, the ear does not have the same power.
The ears of the exhibition visitor register the sounds emitted
from his own body through his body's membranes, which have been set to
vibrating by noises originating therein. This project makes clear that
perception largely takes place behind people's backs, so to speak. The
acoustic sense extends its feelers to take account of places that the ears
can't "see" and numericizes those distances. The ear functions as a sensor
in that liminal place where the senses are inscribed, existing between
the subject who perceives and the world that engenders perception.
(4) Architecture of Sensory Perception
In the world of virtual reality, acoustics often take a subordinate
role to visuality. In fact, however, the eye can only attain a high level
of awareness of a small fraction of the space to which its attentions are
constantly being attracted. The ear, on the other hand, is able to take
in information from a larger space. Many signals are transmitted via sound.
This project attempts to express acoustic perception through the representation
of its 3-D form. Further, waves of data such as psychological condition,
images, and the body's internal sounds, are algorthmically expanded and
contracted along a time axis. As these sounds connect with information
from the inner body, they undergo further transformation.
The Anechoic Room and Acoustic Sense
NTT Basic Research Laboratories'
KASHINO Makio kindly contributed to the sound architecture of these
works.
Where do the feelings of pressure and uneasiness that one experiences
in the anechoic room originate? There is no reflection of sound in the
anechoic room, nor is there any permeation of sound from the outside. Thus,
the visitor to the anechoic room experiences the sensation of being suspended
in an immense space without any form of acoustic orientation. In a normal
environment, the visitor can orient himself almost unconsciously by taking
in the sounds of footsteps, voices, and other varieties of sound and thereby
gain an understanding of the size and materials that make up the space
he occupies. But in the anechoic room, the environment that surrounds the
visitor provides nothing for him to react to or interact with. He is unable
to orient himself in the context of this environment. In short, his sense
of perception is suspended. This project aims to make apparent the role
of the acoustic sense in what would be at any other time a foregone conclusion:
"I exist in this world." This project is not simply about thinking through
how sounds effect one's brain and auditory system . It is also concerned
with the seemingly subordinate elements of the acoustic process such as
the locomotive system's interaction with an environment and changes in
the body's internal organs. The anechoic room utilizes the quality of suspendedness
to artificially create a situation in which the visitor is made aware of
the mediation of sound in the interaction of auditor and environment.