The object on the left may be one of the first sound sculptures. It appears in a 1960 book by German acoustician and musicologist Fritz Winckel (click on the middle image to see the full page). It is a physical 3D spectrogram showing a frequency analysis of an 8-second recording of Beethoven's Eighth Symphony. The left axis is frequency, the bottom/right axis is time, and the vertical axis is the strength of a particular frequency at a particular time. The figure caption uses the term […]
2004 – Cylinder: Early Sound Sculpture
Cylinder by Andy Huntington and Drew Allan may be one of the first digitally-fabricated sound sculptures. Also see our entry 2007 - Explosion of sound sculptures. Source: http://extraversion.co.uk/2003/cylinder/
2007 – Explosion of Sound Sculptures
In 2007-2008, sound became an endless source of inspiration for data sculptors. Examples include (images from left to right): Binaural by Daniel Widrig & Shajay Bhooshan (2007) Sound/Chair by Plummer Fernandez (2008) Sound Memory by Marius Watz (2008) Reflection by Andreas Nicolas Fischer & Benjamin Maus (2008) I Will Never Change by Us by Benga (2012) Microsonic Landscapes by Juan Manuel de J. Escalante (2012) The Shape of the Sound of the Shape of the Sound by Stephen Barrass (2012) […]
2008 – Andreas Fischers' Data Sculptures
Andreas Nicolas Fischer is a Berlin-based artist. Above are four of his 3-D data sculptures: Fundament (world GDP and derivatives volume) Indizes (finance data over time) A week in the life (cellphone communications) Reflection (FFT of a music piece). Source: http://anfischer.com via infosthetics.
2013 – Releases
The New-York-based design agency HUSH crafted a piece of custom software that generates digital, three dimensional visual forms based on the unique timbres and tonalities of individual voices. They asked 100 people to share their feelings about the end of 2013, and the beginning of 2014, in the form of a spoken “release.” Using the forms generated by their software they then created and analog printed a limited run of 100 posters (right image) that they sent to the people that inspired them […]
2014 – Data Sculpture in the White House
Gilles Azzaro, a French digital artist and fab lab co-founder, created a sound sculpture of Obama's 2013 State of the Union Address where Obama mentions 3D printing as the next revolution in manufacturing. Azzaro's sculpture was exhibited in the White House in 2014 during the inauguration of the first White House Maker Faire. The sculpture is interactive: a movement sensor activates the system and a laser beam scans the 3D recording to reveal the President’s speech. See this video for an […]
2014 – Sound Bites
Sound Bites is the result of an experimental design practice. Four days of 24/7 ambient sound recordings resulted in 128 4-second intimate sound loops. Fast Fourier Transform frequency analysis and geometrical operations transformed time, frequency, and amplitude into X, Y and Z dimensions, forming 3D sonic shapes. These ‘disco donuts’ were 3D printed into 128 sound objects. Vacuum molded they formed the base to cast 128 unique chocolate objects. New rhythmic patterns were created, comprising […]
2015 – Create your own Sound Sculpture
This Rhinoscript/Grasshopper procedure creates a 3D printing of an audio file by translating the waves into 3D curves instead of displaying them in 2D, thus elabling the user to "feel" the sound. Also see our other entries on sound. Source: 3D Sound representation