CHAMBERS HUM
- 2024 - CHAMBERS ST A/C PLATFORM - NEW YORK, NY -

Subway Vendor Kiosk, 7.1 Spatial Audio System 

CHAMBERS HUM is a public sound art installation by WPZSCH (Emmett Palaima, Nathan Sherman) produced in collaboration with the MTA Vacant Unit Activation Program.

The installation is accessible 7 days a week. Audio behavior is active 23 hours each day, with a short break between the hours of 4AM and 5AM.


Now Playing: Chambers Hum
Composer: Emmett Palaima

In Taos, New Mexico there is a hum, a low but constant resonance of the landscape. Vibrating just on the edges of the listener’s perception, it is heard most often in the solitary hours of the late night and the early morning. A 1995 study by the Acoustical Society of America found that the frequency of the hum varied by individual listener, from 32hZ to 80hZ, suggesting an internal, psychosomatic origin for the sensation, but also that listeners consistently identified a phenomenon of acoustic beating when a reference tone was played for comparison, an effect only produceable by two sounds interacting in physical space.

What then is the hum? What explanation can reconcile these factors: the internal subjective reality, the external objective reality, and the locality to the remote high desert? 

Perhaps the answer lies in attunement: the hum is omnipresent, it permeates all things, both the external world and our own bodies. The universe is a musical scale, a system of vibrations, and in the hum we perceive a lower order harmonic of this great structure. Those who are attuned can perceive the hum, and attunement comes from a lack of distraction. In the solitude of the desert, in a state of sublime peace and boredom, the universal order reveals itself. The meaning of this experience is obscure, but the phenomenon is clear. In the words of Franz Kafka:

“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

But suppose we cannot remain still and solitary? Suppose we are cast into a state of constant motion? Suppose rather than sitting inert, we wish to take joyful part in the sufferings of the world? How are we to maintain our connection to the universal harmonic order? Suppose we love New York City, and in New York City, the hum is drowned?

With Chambers Hum we have reintroduced this phenomenon into our urban environment of maximum distraction. Arriving subway cars produce a sustained vibration at 224hZ, which Chambers Hum uses as a root note for its tonality. By creating a slowly evolving tonal structure tuned to harmonize with the environmental sounds inherent to the subway system, Chambers Hum restores a connection to the universal order, conveniently located on the Chambers Street A/C Subway Platform.


VIDEO: RICHARD SWAFFORD, AUDIO RECORDED USING 3Dio BINAURAL MICROPHONE

CATHEDRAL-64
- 2023 - HARVESTWORKS - NEW YORK, NY -

Printed Circuit Board, Electronics, Speakers, 18-2 Speaker Wire, Hardware

A spatial audio instrument and composition system, controlling 64 sample accurate 1-bit audio channels.

Swarming tones shift and modulate over time, dancing across the walls of the Cathedral. A wafting sound that hangs heavily in the air like incense.

PHOTO: ANDRES MERCADO

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Cathedral-64 is an immersive audio installation and instrument exploring the use of a very large number of spatialized sound sources. 64 individually controlled speakers are driven with sample-accurate 1-bit (square wave) outputs from a custom designed electronic audio system. The piece explores the musical and psychoacoustic possibilities of this instrument, with an emphasis on continued compositional experimentation throughout the duration of the exhibition.

The central electronic elements of the piece are displayed on a pedestal in the center of the space, with cabling running up to the ceiling and out to each speaker, creating the impression of a vortex or pillar of wire. 64 speakers are mounted in a grid pattern on the space’s walls and ceiling, surrounding the listener in fully 3-dimensional sound.

The piece works both on an auditory and a visual level, by creating a deeply physical and meditative sound environment, while simultaneously displaying the beauty of the instrument and the hardware used to create the sound.


VIDEO: ANDRES MERCADO, AUDIO RECORDED LIVE USING PRESONUS MATCHED CONDENSER PAIR

ARTIFACT SERIES
+ 2023 +

Printed Circuit Board, Electronics, Subwoofer Speaker, Blackened Carbon Steel, Brass Loudspeaker Spikes (Satin Nickel Finish), Birch Rod, Hardware

A one-channel bass synthesizer and speaker amplifier with aux input.

Deliver thine enemy a right sonorous blow.

PHOTO: NO GALLERY NYC, ANNA LOUISE

RAY OF CREATION

- 2023 - FUSEBOX FESTIVAL - AUSTIN, TX -

A spatial audio composition written for 15 full-range speaker channels arrayed across 300ft. Premiered live at Waterloo Park in Austin, Texas as part of Ghost Line X at Fusebox Festival 2023, in collaboration with Dadalab. 

Ray of Creation is available for listening as part of the permanent collection at Black Hole Los Angeles.

The universe is a great musical scale, a descending octave, a harmonic spectrum, a filter, a process by which noise becomes silence.

PHOTO: DADALAB, AARON WHARTON

KNAVE, GREAT WURM, AND THE STARRY FIRMAMENT
- 2023 - DUNKUNSTHALLE - NEW YORK, NY -

Printed Circuit Board, Electronics, SLM Printed Steel, Poplar, Baltic Birch with High Voltage Woodburning, Hardware

A rotary spark gap and Shepard tone based drone synthesizer.

The knave, humble man, looks out at the whole of the cosmos: the great chain of being, the wurm’s coiling body, the night’s blackened tendrils, the impassive stars. A spark breaks the aether where the material meets the divine.

PHOTO: DUNKUNSTHALLE NYC