I had an interesting experience at the Whitechapel Gallery in london when I was there to see an exhibition by:

Giulio Paolini: To Be or Not to Be

Paolini takes us on an exhilarating journey through five decades of work exploring perception and creativity.
Admission free
9 July – 14 September 2014
http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/giulio-paolini-to-be-or-not-to-be

At the show I had an interesting experience. The exhibition was fine but more interestingly the space was filled by a sound. I am not sure if this was intended or was part of the exhibition but it certainly was a device to also show just what the source of the creative process might be. The sound effects went very well together with the exhibition.

Let me explain. As I entered the exhibition hall and began taking in the content of the show I heard a high pitched tinnitus tone in the air. I made enquiries with some chit chat and got more information that I expected. Yes the tone was real and in the air. Yipee there is 2 of us that hear it but was told that an audible tone was also upstairs and it was more like a “hum”, lower pitched. I am trying to recall this experience. Also found out that it could be coming from an industrial fan in one of the buildings next door. A fan that was obviously possibly not working very well. Creating bad electricity in the powerline and hence the high pitched tone in the air and perhaps maybe even amplifying the “hum” of the powerline line supply?.

50 Hz Hum

What was more interesting was that as you entered into the next room with 2 sealed entrance and exit door to the room you can “hear” the standing waves of the “sound” as they remain trapped as they bounced off the walls within that room. As I walked around the installation upstairs I could hear the areas of high sound and low sound areas in the room. The pattern was so clear that you could stop in areas of “high” sound, stand still and enjoy the “music” of the humming fan. You now want to think what a trapped standing wave of sound in a sealed room can do and what is its connection to the creative process. I like to suggest that in this situation all the people in that room at any time is all connected together by this standing wave of low hardly audible sound in the room. Connected also in the sense of the creative process being able to share ideas, unknowingly perhaps through thinking and subvocal speech because as this is also an electrical issue the air is not only filled with a pattern of sound but also electromagnetic energy – having both components of electrical energy and a magnetic component. But here it is only through sound that it might be shown how this connection can happen.

Let me explain. First listen to this.

This is a recording of me talking to a miniature fan. I had to remove the blades as there was too much sound distortion for the recording.

The miniature face fan also gave me a very high magnetic field when on – tested with a TriField Meter that measures magnetic fields. But that’s besides the point with the matter of sound in this example, as a modulating magnetic filed can have an effect on the body. The fan creates a “scream” even without the “propellers”. Talking into the fan – will it cause the sound of the spinning fan to modulate to what is being said.

There is some evidence of modulation in this recording of what is being said (reciting jack and jill). You don’t hear my voice because it was recorded directly into the computer not via a microphone but an in-line recording using “audacity”. So this is where it starts.

But can I recreate the experience at the whitechapel gallery. Not so much as getting an industrial fan running (perhaps another time) but rather getting a “hum” going and to see if it can be modulated.

It started with an ambient amplification of sounds in the air but at the threshold of this sound being created, and which came as a surprise to me, was a tone generated by the electronics itself and hence to see if this set up will modulate to the spoken word.

In the example above the tone was integrated within the amplification and the recording and hence is somewhat closer to the example at the whitechapel gallery – rather than the tone being created separately. There is modulation of the tone to the spoken word. The question is will the brain make sense of the tonal translation of the spoken word. I think the translation can be improved especially with the advent of the powerline technology where sound and broadband can be taken from room to room using the power sockets on your wall.

Now what you make of this. This is the ultimate test. Can a tone be modulated by subvocal speech, that is when you think you silently speak, “Speak Thinking”. You look around you, like you are in a painting studio, get the best material that you think can illuminate the idea and try and manifest it. So here, I take the parabolic microphone, my computer puts a tone of 17 Khz into the air (at the same time I am keeping my mind on the situation at the whitechapel gallery with the sealed room and the tone in the air….) Then I think, “jack and jill”. But at the same time I recognised that I am silently sub vocalising my speech under my breath, as you do when you think you silently speak. I recorded this with the parabolic microphone. See what you think of this:

Above is the tonal modulation of the thinking process. Try and focus in and find the tone that modulates. Remember that I am just a penny investigator, an artist who is researching for an interactive installation. When this system is well designed with filters to isolate the modulations and to amplify them further and adding an algorithm to it to make clear speech out of recording the thinking process. I think this is possible. Even in this rudimentary rough cut you can make sense of what one is thinking. The sealed room at the whitechapel gallery has created the perfect conditions for listening to the thinking process – a tonal frequency in the air, created possibly by a fan in a building closeby, all quiet because this is a gallery, thinking of art – what are you thinking. You can just ding dong about speaking – because speaking will be easily heard ANYWHERE the tone is present but still connected to the sealed room. All is connected as the tone will make its way through the crevices into adjoining buildings and as long as the tone are not distorted from its journey your thinking and speech will be embedded in the modulating tone. This is really like the Doppler effect where a cop tries to find the speed of a car on the highway. The radar gun uses microwaves, here it is just a simple tone sent out, being modulated and monitored on its return journey – Doppler.

Back to the room at the whitechapel gallery. So in this sense all the people in the room were connected through the experience of the 5 senses. Some somewhat “invisible” of sound and electromagnetic signals. A collective perception in a way. If you notice in the arts, the front line of the arts moves at a snails pace of a bit of the past to something new added to it and it moves forward that way. Anything that is crazy new is rejected because the mind has been conditioned through education and etc to hang on to the past to justify content. No giant leaps here in the arts. But galleries like the whitechapel and the Serpentine galleries have in the past and the present try and cross the line of what is being expected of the arts to try and take that Giant leap forward and for the mind to accept the new like it accepts its past because it is easier that way as it has already seen it. I also remember that exhibition at the Hayward gallery of the “art of the invisible”. I was expecting MT rooms but it did show the limitations of the mind and of its senses. To not accept things you cannot yet see.

Also I would also like to suggest that the sealed room at the whitechapel gallery is just a miniature and simplified version of the Earth sealed in its ionosphere.