Pluvial is a sono-tactile architecture that follows the associative and physical quality of rain noise. It connects the listening body with a sonic, animated and partly self-organizing instrument. An acoustic environment arises that unfolds in time and space. Beyond a coupling to digital impulses, an artificial organism is created based on the principles of AI. The eighty-channel sculptural instrument consists of self-made, digitally controlled drums that work according to the String-Drum principle and use the shape memory alloy Nitinol as instrument string. Their metallic resonance tubes lift and lower at the heat-sensitive, kinetic nitinol strings, sending and knocking swelling rhythms and rushing harmonies through space. In analogy to the phenomenon of rain, these string drums are driven by random on-off voltage pulses, which in turn are modulated by the density and intensity of collected precipitation measurements on the world‘s oceans. The physical body of the drum cloud acts like a set of bandwidth filters. In addition, each drum is equipped with a feedback pendulum allowing the rhythms of the individual drums to diverge further.
Credits: Andreas Schimanski loopbpart Berlin
Credit: IvoFaber KIT Duesseldorf
Project Credits / Acknowledgements
Developed and produced in collaboration with Thom Laepple.
Part of the research project “Rhythmic Textures,” funded by Einstein Foundation Berlin. Realized with the Graduate School at the Berlin University of Arts.
Affiliated with and supported by the research project nuClock. (nuclock.eu)
Supported by the SMArt® Steps Program of Dynalloy.Inc
Working with open source data of the Ocean Rain And Ice-phase precipitation measurement Network (Ocean- RAIN)
Biography
Kerstin Ergenzinger is a space and sonic artist. She uses machines as media and instruments for conducting inquiries with regards to the world. They are subtle perceptual machines, tactile-spatial instruments, notational and perceptual systems, that configure experiential spaces. In addition to co-editing the publication Navigating Noise (Walter König, Berlin 2017) she is frequently involved in collaborative research projects. Currently she holds a research and teaching position in the field of sound art at the Braunschweig University of Art.
