Miniatuur

In our everyday environment, we are not only confronted with a murmur of sounds, which are the result of our actions, but also with the phenomena that affect these sounds. This intertwinement gives our perception of the everyday sound environment an ephemeral and subjective character.

Miniatuur is a kinetic sound installation that plays with the physical laws of sound. Mechanisms, through which sounds exist and are created, are revealed. Twentyfive miniature sound objects are placed on a table. Some of the objects hold a tiny speaker and a rotating reflector. The speaker amplifies field recordings of natural noises like wind, crickets, water… The reflector modulates these sounds on a purely acoustic level by acting on physical aspects: air, reflection and movement. The reflector is a rotating flywheel with especially shaped panels. The circular motion of the reflector distorts, disrupts, bounces the physical properties of sound waves. The sound changes dynamically, depending on the movement of the flywheel.

Manipulating sound through movement is in this context an interesting concept because, sonically, it detaches sounds from the sound source. Sound is essentially a change of air pressure. Sound is moving air, but not all the air that moves is sound… Wind becomes sound as it blows around our ears, when it settles in tiny spaces, a fissure, a tube. Wind becomes audible when it sets objects in motion, like leaves on a tree, a waving flag.