Future Soundscapes: stethoscope in stereo

Recently I've been working on building a stereo stethoscope for my project. I managed to connect two microphones to line via a separate set of amps and transistors, so they work independently. Somehow the lines are not fully separated, but just pick one of the signals stronger... This remains to be solved—probably the solution is closer than I could ever imagine. Yet, one never sees one's nose, although it is always the closest object to one's eyes...



Imagine what would happen, it the microphones were connected with e.g. 50m long wires and you could listen really close and simultaneously to things that happen in 100m distance from each other, to those tiny sounds audible only to someone being in a very certain spot... What would this mean and what kind of detached experience would a listener have? And what about wires 500m long? You'd be able to eavesdrop on things taking place 1km apart, but you'd probably not see it.

Future Soundscapes: stethoscope prototype

During the Industry Event alongside the scenarios I presented one prototype, which could accompany one of the scenarios ("Artificial Silence").



It is a simple stethoscope based on a Greman design I found here. I managed to improve it for my purposes and gain a greater amplification, however at the expense of increased circuit noise. Nevertheless, the whole prototype may work as a simulator for introducing the concept of noise vaccination (desensitisation to sounds of a certain loudness, which in practice means decreasing human hearing sensitivity). By adjusting the potentiometer in the middle, one can see how silence might look like after the vaccination, where on this scale is normal human hearing sensitivity and how loud to a person before the treatment might become vaccinated person's normal sound intensity level.

Design Fiction by J Bleecker

I just came across a very interesting article by Julian Bleecker—"Design Fiction: A short essay on design, science, fact and fiction"—which introduces the whole new approach towards design based on science fiction utilised as a speculative design tool.

The article helped me structure my thoughts, reinforced my confidence in this field (it turns out that this is an approach taken really seriously by some open-minded people) and inspired in terms of many potential ways to push my stories forward. It also gives an account on how this emerging field of design came to life, briefly outlaying the history of fact and fiction mingling together. And this space is really a gold mine of inspiration for design.

You can find the article here

Future Soundscapes: Artificial Silence

Not such a distant future.

New reality calls for new measures. Even though each year saw an introduction of quieter vehicles, quieter machines and quieter cities, the exponential rate of development and the growth of economies resulted in increasing levels of noise pollution. Urban soundscapes became more and more unbearable. Silence seemed in conflict with our need for progress.

But then someone—no one really remembers who—suggested a trully philosophical solution. Instead of fighting the noise around us, we could adjust our hearing to simply hear less. This became known as “artificial silence”. In fact, there was nothing revolutionary about it, as silence is not an absolute term anyway—it had been always relative to human hearing range and hearing sensitivity. Shifting conditions around us should induce changes inside our auditory apparatus. Artificial silence made it happen just a bit fatser.

Lured by the opportunities offered by liberalising soundscape legislation, many industries initiated a global programme of vaccinations against noise pollution. Every newborn was conditioned to perceive silence the way it was adequate in terms of modern standards. Children were vaccinated in schools, adults in their workplaces. Alongside measuring one’s blood pressure conditioning was made a standard procedure during every hospitalisation. Soon almost everyone became adjusted. Almost...

Some individuals remained “hyper-sensitive”. They were not vaccinated for varius reasons, be it medical, practical or religious. Nevertheless, this two percent of the population became treated as aurally disabled. To include them into the mainstream of the society, different substitute methods for impairing hearing were developed.

And this is when my story begins...

Future Soundscapes: Voices in My Head

Not such a distant future.

And ubiquitous computing is closer at hand than ever before. Because today it will be decided whether humans could become integrated with machines on a completely new level. If we only manage to silence all concerns about the ethical nature of this step, tomorrow the humanity may become blessed with a brand new sense.

Initial experiments in establishing a direct connection between the vestibulocochlear nerve and a radio receiver proved the link might work better than anticipated. Although no functional hack into human’s neural system has yet been made, a viable example was provided on a chimpanzee. Tesla, the first chimp to receive an integrated radio-neural implant, was also the first to sense the electromagnetic field and radio transmissions.

Because everything about the direct radio-neural implants is still very new, people are filled with anxiety. Implanting first mechanical devices into human body raised similar concernes in the 20th Century. Then came the third stage of human-machine integration in the Murphy scale—electronic devices became linked to human senses and through them indirectly to the brain. This had been achieved not long ago and already it has made all external communication devices obsolete. Implanting a transciever alongside a set of speakers inside the middle ear and a microphone next to vocal cords enabled us to even more directly and effortlessly explore the wireless infosphere. Some have decided to even seal their ears off and rely exclusively on electroacoustic input...

Today however, we face a great opportunity to extend the set of human senses. Some say it will be telepathy and to some extent thay are right. It is yet another ethical dillema that humankind faces in consequence to our technological development.

And this is when my story begins...

Future Soundscapes: Blasting

Not such a distant future.

A team of scientists led by Y. XXXXXX developed a technology to apply sound conditioning treatment to humans. The sound conditioning effect was discovered and described in the early 21st Century. It involves exposing to a long term low-pitch sound and results in an acquired immunity to hearing loss caused by acoustic trauma. XXXXXX’s technology for conditioning human hearing proved safe and effective.

At first, the treatment was used exclusively by certain professionals, whose working environment involved a risk of hearing loss. Perceived as a precautionary measure and prescribed to anyone who asked for it, after some time it started to slip out of control. Bookings for conditioning sessions largely exceeded all initial estimates...

In an official investigation it was discovered that those, who had been conditioned and later exposed to acoustic trauma, found great pleasure and excitement in loosing their hearing for a moment. Many of them compared it to an orgasm during bungee-jumping. Further research into psycho-physical effects of acoustic trauma showed that it gives a unique holistic experience. On the physiological level it was a result of combined effects of an increase in adrenaline level and a decrease in calbindin D-28 kDa immunoreactivity.

After the prohibition of sound conditioning, illegal treatment facilities had been set up. Not surprisinlgy, induced hearing trauma quickly became a popular kick in the clubbing world. It was made a climax point of every rave party and became known as “blasting”. There was no efficient way of enforcing the prohibition of conditioning and blasting—perpetrators were always found clean, as “blasting” left no clear evidence.

Very soon first cases of factual hearing loss due to illegal and unreliable conditioning were reported.

And this is when my story begins...

Future Soundscapes: new scenarios

Having collected all feedback from the Work in Progress show, I tried to use it to improve the scenarios I wrote initially. Firstly I decided to abandon one of them—"Silent Rooms"—as it did not meet with a response I was hoping for. To my mind it is also not radical enough as well. I also decided to merge two scenarios together, which for the very beginning were closely connected anyway: "Soundscape Headpod" and "Headpod Adaptation Courses". Eventually, I decided to go forward with the "Sound Conditioning" scenario and a reinforced "Soundscape Headpod".

I wrote three new scenarios that have a firmer base in current scientific developments and leave more space for interpretation.
The first one, "Blasting", talks about sound conditioning treatment misused by some individuals after it had turned out to produce some strange drug-like side-effects.
The second one, "Voices in My Head", is set in the moment, when it is about to be decided whether integrating human neural system with electronic transcievers should be regarded as ethical.
The third scenario, "Artificial Silence", talks about an alternative way to fight noise pollution, which involves shifting human hearing threshold in order to adapt to changed environment.

Each scenario will be accompanied by a narrative object, which will be in a relationship with the scenario and introduce the narrative. Apart from the object (be it interactive, reactive, inactive or conceptual) I will write three stories that will take place in the envisaged environments.