To explore sound as object I first looked back to my work for Project 1 of objectification through 3D modelling and then 3D printing. This led me to consider the 3D printing of sound and thought this I found the project 3D Printed Record (2012) by Amanda Ghassaei. Here Ghassaei pushes 3D printing to attempt to print sound as reproduced from .wav files. The results are interesting, you can clearly hear the original songs, but they are peppered with additional noise and the sound of the processes used to produce it.
http://www.amandaghassaei.com/projects/3D_printed_record/
The full instructions on how to produce them yourself is here: http://www.instructables.com/id/3D-Printed-Record/
The process uses a combination of Python (to create a .txt file from the .wav) and then Processing (to convert the .txt into a .stl).
I produced an initial attempt at creating a 3D record using Amanda’s process, taking the words ‘bang’ and ‘whoosh’ as onomatopoeic representations where words resemble the sounds they are describing. The results are interesting and you can see how the grooves of each differ with the different word sounds. Following this it would be interesting to try and push this further as a form of non-representation sound as object, perhaps altering the shape produced or experimenting with the inputs and outputs achieved. Amanda has also adapted the project to work with a laser cutter, which again opens up new avenues to explore materiality and in particular textures as derived from the voice/mouth.
Python:
Processing:
Bang:
.txt file produces from a .wav file (sound as visualised in text):
Whoosh:
.txt file produces from a .wav file (sound as visualised in text):
