I'm developing a method to machine knit and solder copper wire, resulting in a flexible and conductive textile. Here are some of my test swatches, all knitted on my Brother 940 knitting machine in my new studio space. The swatches are knitted with 3 strands of 34 AWG wire, held together as a single strand.
I'm showing work in the "Concealed Carry" show at Experimental Station this month.
The show is a response to the new Firearm Conceal Carry law that went into effect January 1.
My work, "Security Blanket", features a knitted image of a gun, embedded with conductive fibers. Touching the trigger "triggers" a (very loud) audio recording of a gun shot. The piece uses capacitive sensing with an Arduino, and I'm excited to be working with this technology, as my students have expressed interest in it, and I plan to introduce a unit in my class on it soon.
The show opening is tonight from 5-8pm. Experimental Station is located at 6100 S. Blackstone Ave, at the edge of the Univ of Chicago campus.
The exhibit will be accompanied by two public conversations on the new law, led by former Chicago Public Radio host Steve Edwards.
[ETA 6/4/14 Here is a video of several speakers in action, taken at a speaker-making workshop I led in March.]
This speaker consists of four pieces of magnet wire, glued between two pieces of paper, positioned precisely over a magnet from a hard drive. The 4 pieces of wire are soldered together at both ends so that they carry audio signal from a small amplifier in parallel. The wires are placed just over the mid-section of the magnet.
This creates an effective speaker because hard drive magnets are dipolar. The broad face of the magnet has both a north and south pole. (Most bar magnets have just one pole per side, and aren't as effective for a flat speaker design.) Additionally, hard drive magnets are extremely strong.
When the wire is placed directly over the boundary between the magnet's two poles (i.e. the red line on the paper rests on the red line on the magnet), it produces a clearly audible speaker.
How and Why It Works
Electric current running through a copper wire produces an
electromagnetic field. If this wire is placed in a magnetic field, it experiences physical force.
The directions of the current, the magnetic field, and the physical force are all perpendicular to each other. A good way to remember this is Fleming’s left-hand rule, which uses your left hand as a mnemonic.
image: Jfmelero
The thumb, forefinger, and middle finger are held perpendicular to each other, forming an x, y, and z axis. The first finger is the magnetic field (B), flowing from north (knuckles) to south (the fingertip). The middle finger is the electric current (I) traveling from positive (the knuckles) to negative (the fingertip). The thumb is the physical force (F), the direction the wire moves.
You can see this principle at work in a conventional speaker:
image: Tony DiMauro
The middle piece is the north pole, and the outer ring is the south. So the magnetic fields run perpendicular through the coil, with the result that it pushes out, in the direction of the cone. Very efficient!
Flattening the Speaker
A coil is great for speakers, but not particularly flat, as it sticks out perpendicular to the resonator.
So I started with a straight length of wire, glued between two pieces of paper. I centered it between the two very powerful poles on the face of the hard drive magnet. I attached a resonator, the paper, so the wire
vibrates the resonator, which vibrates the air much better than a piece of
wire. The result is an audible speaker. (The wire-between-two-magnetic-poles will look familiar to those who know the work of sound artist Alvin Lucier.)
However, one piece of wire doesn’t move the paper very much. To increase the volume, I attached several pieces
of wire, glued parallel to each other across the paper. I also sent the current running through the wires in
parallel (this is very important for increasing volume). Now all the wires vibrate the paper in sync.
My development of this design is on-going, and I am currently refining my knitting machine fabrication techniques. Stay tuned for more documentation.
References:
Hannah Perner-Wilson's Kobakant - resource for e-textiles
Karla Spiluttini and Piem Wirtz at V.2 - a previous knitted-speaker project
Jess Rowland - foil-and-paper speakers using parallel wiring
Dr. Dominique Cheenne - my Columbia College colleague who suggested I look at planar speakers as an alternative model for embedded speakers
LaFolia Loudspeaker Project - a site for diy planar speakers
If you're ever in Central Florida, this place is worth a visit. A lot of junk from NASA, due to the location-- when I was kid, they had a used spacesuit hanging in a corner. It's long gone, but the buckets of electronics covering every inch remain.
I'm in Orlando for the holidays, so Saturday I decided to check out the local makerspace, FamiLab. Met some great makers who showed me the space and some awesome projects. Also learned that FamiLab stands for Four A.M. Lab, not Family-Lab. Big difference!
Playing around with the clamshell stompbox, I used two sketches included in the Arduino examples to turn it into a functioning switch.
To make a momentary push-button switch, I used the sketch, “IfStatementConditional”, found in the “Control” examples.
This sketch was meant for a potentiometer, so I treated the clamshell stompbox as one half of the potentiometer, and used a fixed resistor for the other half.
I teach sound art at Columbia College Chicago.
When my students create sound art installations, they do it in visual art galleries or public spaces. The first hurdle they must clear is capturing the audience's attention. Here are four rules I've devised to help them do so.
Rule #1: Don’t use headphones.
Headphones are for solitary listening. People often socialize while visiting a gallery, and you can’t socialize while wearing headphones.
Expecting a visitor to stand in front of an audio player with headphones, like they’re sampling a track at the record shop, is unrealistic. A few people will put on the headphones. Most won’t.
A number of artists have made brilliant sound work that uses headphones. (Janet Cardiff and Letitia Sonami spring to mind.) What these pieces frequently have in common is awareness and specificity of place. The headphones in these works allow the listener to engage their surroundings in a new and meaningful way, not possible otherwise. The sounds heard on the headphones would lose much of their impact (or would not be possible) if the headphones were moved to a different location.
If the sound art could be experienced on headphones anywhere, the work probably belongs on radio, web, or podcast.
Rule #2 Be a good neighbor, or face the consequences.
Sound cannot be contained in space. It bleeds, affecting everyone in earshot. As R. Murray Schafer has pointed out, humans do not have earlids. There are hard limits to humans’ tolerance of sound. When sound art tests those tolerances, there are consequences.
I’m not suggesting that sound art must be “easy-listening”. But consider that, though the curator supports the work, the gallery assistants, security personnel, or building maintenance staff may not welcome it as the soundtrack of their workday. If a sound piece becomes intolerable to someone, they can and will take steps to silence it.
Koan for sound artists: If a tree falls in the forest, and someone unplugged the speakers, does it make a sound?
A few strategies for being neighborly
Rule #3: The gallery is not the theater.
Students approaching sound installation art often have experience in theater venues (as musicians or filmmakers, for instance). It’s important they understand how the gallery (and the gallery audience) is different.
Theater:
• Acoustics emphasize what is on stage. Sound reinforcement systems allow even the quietest sounds to be heard clearly throughout the space.
• Low lighting helps the audience forget their environment and physical presence.
• The audience is stationary, in chairs, and expects to stay seated for a length of time.
• The experience starts and ends at the same time for everyone. The audience is passive and quiet for the duration.
• All of the above directs our focus to the work being presented on stage.
• Audience attention span = hours.
Gallery:
• The hard, flat walls and floors reflect sounds throughout the space while making it difficult to hear any one sound.
• The bright lighting increases visitors’ awareness of their environment.
• The audience is standing or walking.
• The experience starts and ends at different points in time for everyone.
• The audience is active, moving, and often vocal.
• Galleries must be configured to create (visual) focal points. Public spaces may not have focal points.
• Audience attention span = seconds. (There are a number of surveys on the amount of time a gallery visitor spends looking at a work of visual art. While the results vary, all are measurable in seconds-- single digits, even-- and not minutes.)
Public spaces, of course, could be any combination of the above gallery or theater traits, or none of the above. Which brings us to Rule #4.
Rule #4 Survey the site before you create.
This borrows from architecture – survey the site, then design for it. When I’m creating a new installation, I observe the site as much as possible. I take notes, and consider questions like:
• How long are people in the space?
• What do they do while they are there?
• Where do people focus their attention when they are there?
• What are people using their ears for?
• What are people using their eyes for?
• What impact does the space have on people moving thru it?
• What sounds are already present? What aesthetic impact do they have?
• What sounds are repeated?
• What are the natural rhythms of the space? (These aren’t limited to the auditory. For instance, traffic lights at a crosswalk, and the pedestrian/vehicular movements that follow.)
• Are the sounds signals?
• How do people react to the sounds?
• How do people interact with the sounds?
In my class, we don’t have a designated public place to install work, so we install guerilla-style: we park a portable amp in a public place, connect an mp3 player, and let it play for 15 minutes. We loiter anonymously, or from a distance, to watch the “audience”.
The locations are chosen by students ahead of time, who then survey their sites, and create for it. Success can be measured by audience reactions—a slow, dawning smile, a thoughtful pause. Oblivious passers-by indicate failure. The behavior of strangers is a powerful teacher.
