Visual Sound Experimentation

I began experimenting in Cinema 4d with the sounds of music that I hear. Similar to the previous work. I used the Volumiser in Cinema 4d so the shape responds to the sample music I downloaded. I wanted to generate ideas on how I can take sounds and form some sort of visual from it.

How Sound Affects Us - Negatives

The Sounds I Heard As A Child Vs Other People Around The World

I made the poster on the right based on my childhood in London and me hearing police cars driving past my house because something happened. There was crime in the area that happened a lot and reports of gang fights and knife crime and I would see an area with police line which blocked my route to school so I had to change my route.

The design is simplistic, with the police line going along the face of the design. The pattern of circles is to represent the Doppler Effect; Which is a noticeable change in the frequency of sound, light or water waves as the source and the observer move. I experienced this sound every few months, and it made me feel a bit intimidated and scared because it happened mostly at night.

I thought about different places in the world that have it a lot worse. I thought about the places where children constantly hear bombs going of and screams of terror. These heart-breaking experiences can traumatize a child greatly.

So I thought about how I can visually present the sound of the explosions.

Submarine - Sonar

I made this as a way to show how we also use ultrasound for navigation by our use of submarines. This piece shows different frequencies of the sound.

The Lyrebird

Publish Post

How the Lyrebird can mimic any sound to attract a mate.

How Nature Uses Sound

How Animals Use Sound To Locate, Communicate and Kill

I looked at how animals such as bats rely more on sound than their eyes. Bats use ultrasound to hunt their pray. How it works is that the produce a blast of ultrasound which bounces onto an object or prey and the waves bounce off of the prey and back to the bat. In the direction that the bat is receiving the ultrasound, that is where the prey is located.

 Dolphins use clicking sounds in order to identify prey. Dolphins make a wide array of sounds, including clicks, moans, chirps,creaks, barks, squeaks, yaps, mews, and whistles.
 Dolphins use clicking noises in echolocation, which bounce off objects underwater. This allows them to navigate, identify prey and friends, and avoid obstacles and predators. Dolphins use whistles to maintain contact within their pod or when meeting other pods of dolphins. Their whistles may signal danger, a call for help, or simply identification. Scientists think that each dolphin has its own signature whistle, sort of like our names. Whistles may also help dolphins hunt cooperatively and coordinate migratory movements.

 source of info: http://www.gma.org/marinemammals/communication.html

Sperm whales have the world’s largest biological sound machine housed within their 10-ton heads.
It has been said that this sound that the sperm whale produces can be tweaked into a deadly weapon. Here the image shows the Sperm Whale using the loud blast of ultrasound to stun its prey. 

The Lyrebird

 

 

Birds use their voices to make sounds for all sorts of reasons, such as: claiming territory, seeking mates, begging for food, calling their chicks or mate, staying in touch with flock mates, scolding an intruder of the same species or different species, announcing the presence of a predator, singing a duet with a mate and many other reasons.
Sound is a great form of bird communication because it can carry beyond where birds can see. In some cases, sounds can travel over a mile or several miles under the right conditions. Also, if you are a bird that lives in a thicket, it helps to use your voice to stay in touch with your mate or with the members of your flock.
Source of info: http://www.wildernesscollege.com/bird-communication.html

The bird in the image is the Lyrebird. This bird can imitate the sound of anything it hears. The purpose for this is to attract a mate. It can make sounds from car alarms, camera shutters, and even a chainsaw. It can even mimic the sounds of its fellow bird, even fooling the real bird. And the more complex the sound, the better chance of it attracting a mate.

Alzheimer And The Power of Sound

I looked at how sound affects our brains and I was amazed to discover that people who suffer from Alzheimer disease who have listened to certain sound or song have had some of their memory regain. To me that is amazing because it shows just how powerful sound really is. If you were to imagine a man in Alzheimer who doesn't know his wife's face and hears the song they danced to when they were young and is able to remember that, it shows that sound can be more powerful than just showing someone a photograph.

I made this in Cinema 4d and Illustrator.
The message behind this artwork is that sound opens up places in the mind you didn't know you had. The message behind the vector of the brain is that it is as if the person has a healthy brain that functions as it should and you can see the neurons and brain activity in the background reacting to the sound and music.  

Sad Satan

I was watching a video about the Deep Web. If you have never heard of it, it is defined as the part of the World Wide Web that is not discoverable by means of standard search engines, including password-protected or dynamic pages and encrypted networks. Using web browsers like Tor Brower allows people to anonymously hide all of their information. This new found privacy was taken advantage of and opened a part of the web where the most evil people can perform their horrific acts and still be untraceable. It is infamous for its 'Red Room'. A Red Room a room where a hostage is filmed on a live-stream with people watch and a person (any member of the public) pays by Bit-coin to become the 'director' and they instruct the people at the Red Room to do whatever the person who is paying is telling them to do. It is also a place used for drug dealing.

My idea (the distorted brain) was influenced by a game on the deep web called Sad Satan.  is a horror game in which the player navigates a maze made out of various shadowy hallways as distorted music and audio plays in the background. It also includes real raw sounds of the screams of victims at redrooms.
What I found interesting about this was that I was watching a YouTube video of a gamer playing the 'clean' version of the game and people in the comments section were saying that they could still hear the sound of the game minutes or even hours after they had quit the video. People who have played the real game from the deep web itself felt trauma as the sound they could still hear was reminding them of the grotesque images that they have seen. 



So I created this brain in Cinema 4d to create a cage and x-ray effect, I chose to do this because of how they feel as their brain is subconsciously looping the sound in their heads almost as if they are trapped in their own personal torment. 
I distorted the brain in Photoshop and I noticed how the brain automatically tries to make out the image and you can almost see faces in the image.

The Human Body

Here I made the human skeleton in Cinema 4d. The idea was about how sound affects the human, body, how it affects our behavior and our movement. I looked at house different music makes you behave. For example, listening to heavy-metal music like Slipknot might increase your heart rate and make you do a lot a sharp and fast movements. Whereas listening to music by the likes of Eric Clapton, Bob Marley and Willie Nelson might make you want to relax and listen to the lyrics.

Sound

This is the first visual I made to kick start my project. This is basically a poster to start the topic of how sound affects our brain and emotions. I used Cinema 4d to model the brain and I experimented with typography and layout. I added the word 'Visuals' on the poster on top of the brain because it thought about how the brain can create visuals into the mind, it is a subconscious thing that our brains do.

Proposal

FMP 2016

This year , I want to do and create something different. I spent a lot of time thinking about a narrative for my FMP, and it was not easy. I thought about how this FMP should be something that will highlight you as a designer. I knew i wanted to create something out of the box from what other people are doing. I didn't want to make just a zine or animation because that is something that I used to do a lot last year so I have grown bored of that.
I had a hard time thinking of  a narrative for my FMP that would be strong. So I spoke to a teacher who asked me what I usually do in my spare time and I said I just sit at home and play my guitar and he said I could do something that is related to guitar and I thought about it and how I can widen this idea. 

What is my narrative?
1st idea:
My first idea was how I grew up in an area in London and how I was affected by the sounds of police cars constantly.
2nd idea:
Using the 'Sounds' from my London idea I changed the topic to sound in general and titled this project 'Visual Sound' and wanted to create visuals of different sounds from different places around the world.

My target audience?
My target audience is the general public because sounds affects everyone, when we talk, it creates vibrations which is a frequency. 

Final idea:

Sound: And its Effects on Everything

In this project I want to explore sound and how it affects everything around us. I want to explore how it affects our emotion, bodies, memories, brain activity etc.
I also want to explore a certain location and how its sounds makes you feel a certain way. For example, a busy and noisy street with loud talking and road noises may make you feel uncomfortable whereas an open nature place with the sound of a rushing water and birds chirping gives you a feeling of tranquility.
I want to explore how sounds affect our minds. I believe that sound is more powerful than a photograph. For example if you remember a funny or crazy moment you experienced with friends and a certain song or sound was playing at the time; By listening to the music, you can almost relive that moment and smile to yourself. It is amazing how the brain can produce visuals and having sound can create a virtual environment. This way that the brain responds to sound affects our emotions is the most amazing way.


My deliverable:

My idea for my final deliverable, I want to make a virtual environment that will make my narrative clear to my audience.