Lighting&Sound America Online - News: This summer, undersea sounds captured by artist Jana Winderen temporarily transformed New York City's seven-block-long Park Avenue Tunnel in the immersive sound installation DIVE. The soundscape was heard through more than 60 Meyer Sound self-powered loudspeakers configured by Tony Myatt, a professor at the University of Surrey.
18 comments:
Oh my cool this is such a cool idea!! And what a great location. I really like the idea of transforming the tunnels because walking through them is generally not really fun if you are not a kid listening for your own echo. (I personally get paranoid being alone in the nyc tunnels in central park.) I am a little upset that I was not able to experience this “underwater tunnel” because if the quality of the sound is really as amazing as it sounds, that MUST have been one hell of an experience. I would also love to know more about how Winderen used the echo of the tunnel and not just the size/amount of equipment to help her with the soundscape/design. I can only imagine that the designer used the echo to an advantage because as far as I know there is really no way around it.
I am so upset I missed this installation this summer. As a kid growing up in New York, I always imagined water completely surrounding the tunnels that I would have to drive through in and out of New York City. This installation truly sounds like a once in a lifetime experience. I would be curious to see exactly what the configuration was of the Meyer self-powered speakers. 7 blocks worth of tunnel is a lot of space to fill, and I'm eager to know how the designers achieved this effectively. This installation also sounds like it was a great addition to NYC's Summer Streets event, where multiple streets are closed down, leaving them open for pedestrians to roam free of taxis, bikes, and cars.
I really like this installation. It creates something magical and exciting in a space that normally is boring and sometimes scary. Most people do not like being in tunnels because they are small, long inclosed spaces underwater. I always wondered what would happen if it broke and flooded. I think the sounds distract people from those thoughts because they are embracing being underwater. The sound is transforming the whole space and messing with people's brains. If you close your eyes it will seem like you are actually at the beach and underwater, but without the fear of not being able to breathe underwater.
The experience as described brings back memories of the arcade project from last year, and how difficult creating a really immersive experience is. Specifically reminding me of Mammon Enterprises, the under-the-sea adventure that has left a mark on the halls of Purnell forever. The other thing that comes to memory is as a child, walking through the Aquarium water tunnels, the kind that go through the bottom of a large fish tank and are glass all around, I dont know if there is one in Pittsburgh. I really like the idea, but unless there was visual planning that went into the project as well, I think I would be confusing to hear the sounds of the ocean inside a concrete tube.
All of these things that keep happening in New York make me wish I was back home so I could experience them in person rather than reading about them. This installation is so cool! The layering of sounds to create such an experience must have been extremely difficult. I can't even imagine how anyone discovered the sounds that sea insects make let alone recorded it to a quality that was usable in an installation piece. I really wish I had known about this piece this summer. I am super disappointed that I missed it.
This is an installation I wish I could have experienced. Water sounds are hard to record but I would assume Winderen did an artful job of it. I wonder how the aural landscape changed as you ventured through the tunnel and if the experience was different depending on which direction you walked through the tunnel. I wonder how the project began and how an artist from Norway was paired with a NYC tunnel. Although the article has a tone of advertising for Meyer, it still has some useful content.
This art installation is quite amazing. I have always found sound art to be one of my favorite art forms and one that I would very much like to help with the engineering of one day. I think that this article does a great job of telling us how difficult of a task it was to successfully fill such a large space with clear audio while giving some advertisement for Meyer. Personally, I strongly dislike Meyer speakers and think that much of this article is too promotional. I think that the thought that the Meyer boxes were chosen for their "weather resilience" is a load of crap, as the article states, the Meyer boxes are self-powered, meaning that all of the electronics are stored in the boxes. As we know electronics and water don't get along very well. Meanwhile a non-powered speaker could go through a thunderstorm before having any issue.
This sounds (ha..) amazing! Soundscape installations are so interesting to me because I find that they are overall more powerful than just about any other type of immersive environment. Even if you are in the most detailed, well-done and complete visual environment ever, it doesn’t feel real until you can hear the sounds that would belong in that environment. I’d say that is true of smell too, as hearing and smell are our two sense that are the least easily described and explained but integral to a true sensory inclusive experience. It’s particularly cool that this specific installation takes place over such a large area, and I imagine it makes it that much more powerful. I’d love to go there, close my eyes and just get transported to that underwater environment. On top of the nature of the project itself, it’s a cool re-purposing of urban landscape and an event that is probably a great way to pull a community together.
Sorry I missed this. Anyone ever been to the Detroit Airport? There's this crazy pedestrian tunnel there to get to Terminal A from the main Terminal and as a kid I went through it every time I went to see my grandmother in Michigan. I always thought of it as an underwater experience, although I don't think it was meant that way. It has this weird soundscape element to it that I think is supposed to be soothing. I like the fact that this installation was sound only. In this age I almost expect something like this to have some kind of projection element associated with it. I wonder if they kept the tunnel dark the whole time? I would think at night that would have been a safety concern, but I would have wanted to visit in as complete a darkness as possible for the full effect. Deprive the other senses to highlight the one.
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This is such a fantastic idea. Sound art and engineering requires a lot of innovative thinking to pull of properly, and I think this idea really goes above and beyond what you think you would expect. I can only imagine walking through this tunnel and what it would sound like. I could also only imagine the hordes of people who just happened to be walking through, completely unaware that the strange underwater sounds they were experiencing was part of an art installation.
This is really neat, I wish I had gotten to see it. Tunnels are a neat venue for art and theater because they are very one dimensional. The audience innately knows to keep walking and to make their way through. One of the scariest memories I have from my middle school days is coming through the Kennywood tunnel at the opening of a Fright Night. The cobble stone echoed laughs and shrieks through the fog filled, strobe lit tunnel, as monsters and people with gas chainsaws came through the fog towards us. As Chris said, I think the sound in this case might have been a bit weird inside an otherwise concrete tunnel, but I think it would also have been cool to see some awesome media alongside the tunnel.
This sounds really awesome! I wonder how they thought of this exhibit? Tunnels are definitely an interesting and unique type of setting for any type of art installation, especially one that is all sound. I wonder how the fact that it was concrete affected the exhibit? I agree with Chris and Joe, this is definitely something I would see having some sort of media with, or at the very least blue/green LEDs. I also agree with Mike about this article, it definitely felt like a promotion of Meyer sound. They said that name way more times than necessary.
I love this idea. I think we so often think of an installation piece only in terms of visuals, like sculptures or media displays, so hearing that artists are breaking out of this trend and exploring a different sensory medium is very exciting. Being from New York City I really wish I got to see (or rather hear) this piece, because I think it does a great job of exploring both the original history of the city, when the tunnels space used to be occupied by free flowing water, while also playing with the imaginations of its audience, as many New Yorkers no doubt feel a hidden presence of water whenever they drive through one of the city's major tunnels.
I would love to hear more about how they configured the three dimensional sound and how they designed the placement of the speakers in relation to the tunnels acoustics to achieve such an effect. No doubt it was some endeavor.
This is a very cool idea because it transforms a place that people experience everyday and do not take much notice of and make it something that people will take notice of it. Also anyone going through the tunnel is able to experience it without having to go through any special process. This makes it accessible to people that would not consider themselves museum or even artsy people. They should take this idea and expand it to other applications around the world.
This installation sounds pretty cool, but not all that impressive. Maybe I do not understand how significant of an undertaking this is. This sounds to me like Meyer sponsored the installation, and now they are getting a lot of credit for it. Meyer makes some of the best speakers out there, but I don’t know that this installation wouldn’t be possible without using their gear. It sounds like this article is saying that the design wouldn’t be possible without the gear, which I don’t think is the case.
The software used here also doesn’t seem to be getting the credit it deserves. Ambisonic is mentioned in one line, but I’d bet the design was more reliant on the software than the speakers used to reproduce the sounds.
I’d like to read an article about the actual installation, rather than the gear used to make it.
Be right back. Heading to NYC this weekend. This is spectacular. I find art installations of whatever category immensely impressive, but ones that are so seamlessly integrated into a public space such as DIVE, amaze me to no end. I truly wish I could experience this installation for myself, but unfortunately I'll have to make do with youtube videos and written reviews. One thing that I question though is the artist's choice of going with Meyer speakers and not another type, too much of this sounds like Meyer trying to promote their own speaker when there are plenty of other better suited options for something like this.
I probably drove through/past that tunnel numerous times this summer, and I never even heard (see what I did there) about the installation. It sounds (and again) like I would have really enjoyed going to it, but oh well. The concept of the installation seems really interesting, and the venue is perfect for it. It's always cool to see what happens when people do installations in unique places, and to see what happens when people introduce the element of sound to them. I liked how much they described the technical process of the installation, but I felt like I was reading an ad. Yes, I know that Meyer wrote the story, but I wish they could have been a little bit less bluntly advertising their products.
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