2011
Site-specific six-channel sound installation
Six suspended foam-core sounding panels
Controlled-feedback resonance mapping
Sight Specific: Explorations in Space, Vision, and Sound
April 20–September 4, 2011
Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Stairway was commissioned for the museum’s central staircase as part of Sight Specific: Explorations in Space, Vision, and Sound, an exhibition curated by Freddy Jouwayed.
I began by mapping the acoustical resonances of the staircase through controlled feedback. The process identified 202 frequencies associated with the site. Because the surface exciters used in the installation could not reproduce the lowest frequencies effectively—and because very high tones could become unpleasant—I selected a smaller group from the complete mapping for the composition.
Rather than reconstructing the resonances as clean sine waves, I worked with the recordings through which the tones had revealed themselves. These contained the resonant frequencies as they sounded in the staircase, along with occasional incidental sounds captured inside the museum. Consequently, nearly everything heard in the installation originated in the process of acoustically exciting and recording the site itself.
My initial proposal called for a sequence of foam-core panels mounted slightly away from the wall, leaving enough space for surface exciters behind them. Freddy Jouwayed suggested suspending the panels so that they projected from the wall like awnings. Although the foam core presented structural difficulties, Freddy designed and installed a suspension system that made the arrangement possible.
Six panels were distributed evenly along the staircase. I attached one surface exciter to each panel and connected each to a discrete channel. The playback was created using a 5.1 system, with its nominal subwoofer channel adapted to carry full-range sound as the sixth channel.
The resonant tones remained in stationary locations rather than traveling among the panels. As visitors climbed or descended the stairs, their own movement altered the combination of pitches they heard. The staircase therefore became both the source of the work and the means through which its changing sonorities could be experienced. Its slowly evolving layers rose and receded in waves, revealing different portions of the site’s acoustical signature from different positions.
The installation operated continuously during museum hours.
SCORE
The score records the 202 frequencies identified during the controlled-feedback mapping of the staircase. Only a selection of these frequencies was used in the installation.
EXHIBITION
Sight Specific: Explorations in Space, Vision, and Sound
Curated by Freddy Jouwayed
Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale
April 20–September 4, 2011
REVIEW
CREDITS
Concept, resonance mapping, composition and sound-system installation: Gustavo Matamoros
Exhibition curation, suspended-panel design and physical installation: Freddy Jouwayed
Installation photographs: Luis Olazabal