Public Installations
Our collective team of engineers, artists and creators have been directly responsible for four out of the five public bone conduction installations carried out in Europe in the past decade and all four represent the only such installations in a worldwide context, ever installed outdoors. Our most recent project represents a threefold advancement of the technology and a coming of age of the artistic potential of the concept.
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The Concept
Sound is essentially a code for sending and/or receiving a message. That message can be directive, informative, abstract, artistic, or indeed a combination of these and many others. The platform for sending this code is the very air that surrounds us.
In most instances this platform is ambiguous of recipient.
Play a song audibly and anyone within earshot can hear that song, speak out loud and anyone within earshot can similarly hear your voice and the message it contains. This causality is not always welcome.
There are obviously devices such as headphones which can target delivery of the code to the intended recipient, to the exclusion of others, but this implies a prior intention to engage and requires additional personal hardware.
Bone Conduction does not use air as it’s platform for delivering sound, it utilises minute vibrations in a solid substrate, applied directly to the human skeletal system to deliver its code.
The code is ever present, silent, it is the recipient who decides whether to engage or not.
A simple analogy is to think back to when you were a kid.
Some of us were adventurous and foolish enough in our youth to place the side of our head on railway lines in the excited hope of hearing a distant train.
Those of us who believed we could hear the train were mistaken. Rather, we actually felt the sound of that distant train.
Vibrations in the train track reverberated against our skull and were translated back into meaningful sound by a combination of our inner ear and our brain.
Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland
Christchurch Cathedral in Dublin has a substantial viewing gallery, immediately fronting its main entrance. As a participant approaches said gallery railing, they encounter an audible, but succinct soundscape comprised of church bells, choral arrangements and vocal renditions. This audible soundscape is not produced by a proprietary sound system, but by the actual railing itself.
When the participant places their hand on the railing, they feel physical vibrations that augment the audible soundscape that they are hearing.
Rest their elbows on the railing, cup their ears and participants experience a completely different but complimentary soundscape via bone conduction, featuring sound frequencies at the very threshold of human hearing.
In the context of Christchurch Cathedral our team conceived, designed and built this interactive experience around a single inspiration, the heartbeat of St Laurence O'Toole.
Bruhlsche Terrasse, Dresden, Germany
Using bone conduction, a technology developed for hearing devices, the touched echo installation transmits sounds of the cities which were devastated in the 1945 carpet bombing in the Second World War, through the arms of the visitors when they rest their elbows on the balustrade and hold their ears closed. Several custom-made sound conductors mounted to the railing send sounds of airplanes and bombs exploding through vibrations; it is completely silent unless you touch the railing. The installation touched echo is a minimal media intervention set within a public space. The visitors of Brühl's Terrace in Dresden are taken back in time to the night of the terrible air raid which devastated their city February 13, 1945. In their role as performer, the visitor imagines themselves in the place of the Dresden inhabitants who must have closed their ears tightly in fear to shut out the horrendous noise of the explosions 65 years ago. When one leans on the balustrade the sound of airplanes and explosions is transmitted from the swinging balustrade through one’s arm directly into the inner ear.