‘Sound Works’ - Exploring the Acoustic and Sonic properties of Bone China.
A series of related projects investigating the Sound properties of bone china. Marking a major shift in my artistic focus – collaborating with professional percussionists in designing ‘playable’ ceramic Sound Structures and working with Deaf Leaders to Visualise Sound. Two strands of ongoing development towards creating a Sound Installation Performance for Deaf and Hearing audiences.
The sections below detail some of the key elements from the Sound Work projects thus far.
Randomised Percussion
Early investigations – carried out working entirely on my own during the first year of the Covid pandemic – focused on designing prototype structures comprising multiple bone china discs. These were either suspended from threads or supported by rods – enabling flexible configurations with an aim of maximising the structures’ sound generating potential and a view to conveying some of bone chinas’ sound properties to others. At this stage, outside of my own imagination, I could not be sure if there was any interest in a ceramic Sound Art concept. However, in filming my experiments and Posting them on Instagram I was amazed by the incredibly positive reaction to my own Posts, as well as to seeing one particular clip being ‘re-posted’ @sound.art.museum and gaining over 23K views. You can view the ‘Ping Pong Ball’ clip HERE.
Video clips
Early stages in developing the ‘Sound Works’ – Single ‘Bongs’ to ‘100 Ping Pong Balls’.
Sound Structures – Disc and Sheet Units
In building the first Structures, I chose two simple shapes – Discs and rectangular Sheets – and established a consistent making process to produce these units at volume – in preparation for scaling-up and devising more complex Sound Structures as the project progressed.
The units were hand rolled to varying thicknesses of 1.5mm to 3mm, cut to size and shape at ‘leather hard’ again by hand, then dried very carefully for approximately a week before being fired to 1250ºC.
Size and thickness determines the sound or tone of a unit when struck. Generally, smaller units give a higher pitch and larger units a lower pitch, with Discs producing a bell-like chime and Sheets a more drone-like tone. Both shapes have incredible resonance with an audible ‘sustain’ of around 30 seconds. However, with a good quality recording microphone and headphones the sound can be heard for up to 1min 30seconds.
Disc Units
Sheet Units
Human Percussion
The Performance Development strand of my investigations into the Sound of bone china, with percussionists Dame Evelyn Glennie and Nao Masuda. Observing how two players behave within the Sound Installation.
Assessing the percussionists’ movement between zones – responding to one another’s playing, either independently on different elements within the larger Sounsdcape or together on a single Sound Structure.
Experimenting with Playing Methods (See next section) to build a Sound Palette, discussing Ergonomics/Playability and proposing structure Refinements.
Slideshow: Dame Evelyn Glennie and Nao Masuda exploring the Ceramic Soundscape.
Edited film stills by Chris Wight from the project film by Sima Gonsai.
Nao Masuda is a composer, musician, physical performer and martial arts instructor. Nao has toured extensively with her Taiko Drumming group and composed/performed/recorded music for multiple theatre projects including with deaf and hearing artists to “physicalise music”. Nao continues to work with deaf artists of various disciplines both as a musician and an access to music.
Playing Methods
Multiple playing techniques were deployed by Evelyn and Nao in searching out all the sound-making possibilities within the Structures. Beaters, sticks, mallets of different type and material were experimented with, along with violin bows, wire loops and bare hands to build a wide ranging Sound Palette of techniques and sounds that can be relialbly reproduced. Some of these are shown in the gallery below.
Building a Sound Palette
Sound Sketches – Composing for a Ceramic Soundscape
With a Sound Palette established, Nao Masuda was able to take the first steps towards composing works for the Soundscape – digitally cutting and pasting recordings of Evelyn and herself playing (captured by Sound Designer Chris Bartholomew-Fox). Working this way has the dual benefits of being a relatively quick way to outline compositional ideas in ‘Sketch’ form that crucially are also based on actual playing methods and sounds the percussionists know they can reproduce live.
A Sound Sketch created by Nao Masuda is used in this video which introduced the project on social media – Instagram in this case.
You can hear other Sound Sketches by Nao Masuda over on my Instagram feed in a number of Posts about this project. Click the link below to visit.
Video with Sound Sketch by Nao Masuda.
Images Sima Gonsai/Chris Wight.
Pitch Bending
Lowering and raising the bone china Sheets in and out of a tank of water as they are struck, creates distinct shifts in pitch. These fluctuations in Sound Frequency are instantaneously made visible as Sonic Patterns on the vibration plate of the Sonic Vibration Generator that I built especially for this project.
See more on this in the Sound Visualisation section below.
Theatrical qualities for a Sound Art Performance
Beyond Sound, the Structures and material they are made from, demonstrate the theatrical potential for a Sound Art Performance. The suspended Sheets can be reconfigured in layers like theatrical scenery ‘flats’ to define or divide up a performance space, creating an intriguing structural patchwork with maze-like passages for the performers to move through – partly obscured, partly glimpsed between gaps or revealed as shadows through the translucence of the bone china.
As shown in the images, lighting combined with the light-responsive properties of the bone china can visually enhance the performance, with the players hands appearing as distorted shadows whilst generating sounds with the lightest touches of finger tips and palms. This capability for dramatic Shadow Play within the Sound Structures points to possibilities for a very unique performance.
A Catalyst – Creating Bone China Earpieces with a Deaf Artist
In 2019, I was contacted by a young artist Maral Mamaghanizadeh – then a recent Jewellery graduate – wanting to learn about using bone china. Maral is profoundly deaf and was seeking my expertise to help her make a new body of work involving the creation of ceramic ‘over-ear pieces’ to be worn by hearing people to give a distorted listening sensation – similar to that experienced by deaf people wearing hearing aids or with cochlear implants.
Maral also told me she had become a political refugee for her artwork, ‘The Politics of Voice; The Tale of Tresses’ which directly challenged the patriarchal society in Iran. The biomorphic shapes of the earpieces are abstracted female forms and some are inscribed with feminist protest poems in Maral’s native language of Farsi. You can see examples in this gallery of images and read more about Maral’s project here.
Making Maral’s Earpieces
Sound Visualisation
Working with Deaf Leaders Ruth Montgomery and Omeima Mudawi-Rowlings this strand of investigation looked at visual and vibrational ways of engaging deaf people in Sound – primarily through using the Sonic Vibration Generator I built to reveal invisible Sound Waves. Having Ruth and Omeima as my guides in this research, learning from them and receiving their insight – both as deaf people and artists – was vital in making this element of my concept as impactful and appropriate as possible for the deaf community.
Visualising Material Trials
In our research trials, various kinds of ‘visualising’ materials were used to create Sound Patterns with the Sonic Vibration Generator – garnet, short threads and tiny buttons – as we looked to develop ways of making the Sonic Pattern Workshops as engaging as possible for deaf participants.
Whilst using paint granules for printing the Sonic Patterns, a key intervention from Ruth and Omeima came when they asked what would happen if we mixed the colours – wondering if it might yield more information about Sound Wave behaviour. On doing this we could all immediately see a difference. Within seemingly static areas of the pattern forming on the vibration plate, coloured particles were slowly revolving or freneticaly gyrating round and around other contrasting coloured particles – revealing minute patterns of movement within patterns of sound.
Although mixing the colours created a less appealing, more chaotic visual aesthetic to my hearing-centric experience of seeing the Sound Waves – this simple intervention by Ruth and Omeima (Evelyn also made the same suggestion, unprompted, later in the project) gave deaf people – and myself – a far more visually informative understanding of Sonic Vibrations. A really important discovery that I would never have discovered working on my own!
Sonic Pattern Workshops
Once Ruth, Omeima and I had established a set of Sound Visualisation experiments and techniques to demonstrate – designed to be appropriate and accessible to deaf people – we went on to test these out with pupils of primary to secondary level in a series of ‘Sonic Pattern Workshops’ held at Deaf Schools around the country. The workshops were extremely successful, enabling deaf participants to both ‘See & Feel Sound’ and therefore better engage with the ‘Invisible World of Sound’ and by extension, Sound Art.
Images from the Sonic Pattern Workshops
Concept Images
Prior to creating a final physical large-scale work, I often work up a Concept Image using photographs of ceramic units – the production method for which, is already resolved – in order to help envisage larger or more complex ideas. Below are examples created at various stages of developing the Sound Works.
