Installation based on tactile transducers, infrasound soundtrack, headphones
The main object, a wooden cube measuring approximately 50x50x50 cm, contains a transducer that allows people to experience an infrasonic track through their bodies and bones. The accompanying headphones contain an audio track that establishes a counterpoint between the sound being heard and the infrasound being felt through the body, in a novel experience in which both things are separated.
Different versions of the installation have been shown in several spaces, including Galeria Vermelho (São Paulo), Oi Futuro (Rio de Janeiro) and Centro Cultural da Caixa (Rio de Janeiro).
I’ve haven’t added an audio excerpt of the soundtrack here because it’s rather useless – most of the sound/infrasound information takes is located in the range 12~20 Hz, making it impossible to reproduce with regular speakers/phones and an MP3 file and barely perceptible by human ears.
This installation is part of a research on producing electroacoustic compositions exploring the limits of the audible spectrum and other perceptual possibilities in order to expand the sensory vocabulary of musical expression beyond cochlear sound, and was mentioned as an example of “non-sounding music” by electroacoustic composer Rodolfo Caesar. It also seeks to reproduce part of the bodiliy experience of techno, dub and funk carioca music, with its heavy subsonic basses, in a completely different situation and musical context.