Soundnet is a new live performance musical
instrument of monumental proportions created by Sensorband
(Zbigniew Karkowski, Edwin van der Heide, Atau Tanaka). It is a giant web
11meters x 11 meters, created with 16mm thick shipping rope. At the end
of the ropes are eleven sensors that detect stretching and movement. We
perform the instrument by climbing on it, all three of us at once.
Soundnet is inspired by The Web, a 1 meter diameter
spider's web created by the composer Michel Waisvisz, at STEIM,
Amterdam. Our goal was to make a life sized version of this idea. The sensors
were designed for us by Bert
Bongers, electronic musical instrument builder, and fabricated
by Theo Borsboom, a Harley-Davidson mechanic. Each sensor is a cylinder
and piston that can sustain 500kg of force. Inside is a large spring, somelike
in the shock absorber of a motorcycle. Inside the spring is a fader from
a Soundcraft mixing board. As we climb the ropes, the sensors stretch and
move in response to our movements. This displaces the fader inside, which
sends a control signal to our interface box, the I-Cube
System, created in Canada. The interface box outputs a MIDI signal to
a Macintosh which is running special performance software created with the
Max music programming environment.
We are creating music with interactive technology, but the technology part
is tiny compared to the physical part. The rope, the metal, and the humans
climbing it take on an incredible physicality, and focus more on the organic
nature and the human element of interaction rather than on mouseclicks and
screen redraws. This puts the emphasis in man-machine interaction back towards
the human side. As a result, the sounds the Soundnet makes as an instrument
are organic as well. We work with digital recordings of natural sounds.
The signals from the Soundnet control DSP (digital signal processes) - filters,
convolution, waveshaping to sculpt the sound. Again, natural elements are
put in direct confrontation with technology. The physical nature of our
movement meeting the virtual nature of the signal processing creates a dynamic
situation where we deal directly with sound as our material. Through gesture
and pure exertion, we sculpt the sound to create sonorities emanating from
the huge net.