HD 12 3D printed Prehispanic instruments, micro controllers' windmill, weather station, compressor


Replicas of pre-hispanic musical instruments, from separate archaeological explorations, located in international collections. Recreated using 3D scanning and modelling. Tomographic examination created an internal and external map of each instrument. 3D Printed in clay-like material. Connected to a pneumatic system following random data collected from the wind. A tower with sensors is installed in Peru, capturing the wind data, high enough to avoid any obstacles that could alter the quality. Data is sent to an Arduino plate that interpolates the information. The plate is connected to the pneumatic system that introduces pressurized air into the system. Solenoid valves open and close, allowing air to blow the replica instruments, producing sound.

The Eternal Return is an art installation that seeks to impact on the private and collective imaginary using 3D impressions from pre-hispanic musical instruments, that are again ‘played’ by the wind with technological assistance. The intention is to hear random interpretations of someone else’s past. This process makes us wonder about how we understand time and, as in the paradox of Theseus’ ship, can we confirm that the sound is the same if the body changes?

In the first instance, The Eternal Return, pre-Hispanic Interactions project revisits a real everyday aspect of pre-Hispanic Peru: sound. For this purpose, replicas of musical instruments discovered in different archaeological explorations are used and integrated into a musical, interactive, and incidental installation. In the second instance, the project seeks to re-access and re-imagine the pre-Hispanic pieces found in different collections around the world, in order to fill in some of the gaps in our history knowledge of this period. The installation aims to unveil a collective consciousness through the sound experience.

The process begins with the collaboration of institutions in the loan of pre-Hispanic pieces from their collections. These go through a tomographic examination to make an internal and external map of them. These are then printed in a 3D material that has clay-like qualities. Then these pieces are connected to a pneumatic system that injects pressurized air into each of them randomly, following data collected from the wind. At the same time, we used a tower with the sensors to capture the wind data, high enough to avoid any obstacles that could alter the quality. This data is then sent to an Arduino plate that interpetrates the information, the plate is also connected to an pneumatic system that will introduce pressurized air into the system. In the end, some solenoid valves open and close giving way to the air that “blows” the replicas producing sound.-Hispanic Interactions project revisits a real everyday aspect of pre-Hispanic Peru: sound. For this purpose, replicas of musical instruments discovered in different archaeological explorations are used and integrated into a musical, interactive, and incidental installation. In the second instance, the project seeks to re-access and re-imagine the pre-Hispanic pieces found in different collections around the world, in order to fill in some of the gaps in our history knowledge of this period. The installation aims to unveil a collective consciousness through the sound experience. The process begins with the collaboration of institutions in the loan of pre-Hispanic pieces from their collections. These go through a tomographic examination to make an internal and external map of them. These are then printed in a 3D material that has clay-like qualities. Then these pieces are connected to a pneumatic system that injects pressurized air into each of them randomly, following data collected from the wind. At the same time, we used a tower with the sensors to capture the wind data, high enough to avoid any obstacles that could alter the quality. This data is then sent to an Arduino plate that interpetrates the information, the plate is also connected to an pneumatic system that will introduce pressurized air into the system. In the end, some solenoid valves open and close giving way to the air that “blows” the replicas producing sound.

10 3D printed acoustic resonators

Aluminum tube resonators, pneumatic valves, hoses, air compressor, microprocessor controlling air flow. The shapes of acoustic resonators are based on simplified vowel models producing the sounds A, E, O, U, and I. The sound sequences they produce are random.

Whispering (2016-2022) is a series of sound installations where acoustic resonators designed after human vocal tract models create whisper-like sounds by the air flowing through them. Whispering I (2016) utilizes compressed air flowing through 3D-printed acoustic resonators shaped after the forms that human vocal tract takes during speech. The sounds that the viewer hears while walking around the space resemble human whispering, as well as breathing. Sound sequences are controlled by a microprocessor and are based on the probabilities of the alphabet’s letters to succeed each other in a collection of texts, thus reflecting rhythms in language. The project was supported by BStart.

Whispering I (2016) utilizes compressed air flowing through 3D-printed acoustic resonators shaped after the forms that human vocal tract takes during speech. The sounds that the viewer hears while walking around the space resemble human whispering, as well as breathing. Sound sequences are controlled by a microprocessor and are based on the probabilities of the alphabet’s letters to succeed each other in a collection of texts, thus reflecting rhythms in language. The project was supported by BStart.

9 robotic bellows driven resonators

I The sound installation was commissioned by the festival De Lugares e Órganos (Santiago de Compostela 2020) and is framed around two coexisting elements ; the autonomous installation called Organismo I, a sort of automata that emulates a repertoire of sounds associated with the natural world, and a series of short pieces for organ composed by means of converting field recordings from different geographical locations to the characteristics of this historical instrument.

The project is based on research related to the special registers that are found in some organs, primarily of the Baroque period. Organscape imitates paramusical sounds, such as those of birds or thunder, and delves into representing the idea of our audible environment through a series of works. It is not so much an attempt to achieve a faithful imitation, but to outline certain acoustic characteristics of the evoked material, the wind, bird or a swarm, for example. Creating a tension that places us between utopia and dystopia.

In some way, the organ can be considered one of the first site-specific “installations”. It is a sound device built to remain in a fixed place, based on the acoustics of the space it occupies. This perspective, links the organ to the field of sound art and has inspired the framework of Organismo I. This modular device tries to emulate a natural sounds repertoire through the use of different acoustic mechanisms, such as bird calls, activated by the air from different bellows.

In this first phase, the work carried out focuses on a series of mechanical ornithology studies. The compositions entitled Variaciones para el Rei-Lúa have been inspired by the text, included in the work The Assassinated Poet, by the French writer Guillaume Apollinaire. Here the author recreates his imagined encounter with Luis II of Bavaria who, confined in a mysterious cave, played the keyboard of a fantastic organ to reproduce the sounds of different parts of the world; “The whistling of the geysers when the boiling augas erupt […], terrible noises from the street, trams, factories […], elephants sweep. One o´clock at night! This is India! Then Tibet. You can hear the priestly bells ringing […] Dum, Dum, boom, dum dum, boom, boom, dum, dum, boom, it’s Beijing, the gongs and the round drums, the innumerable dogs that shout or bark mixing their voices with the lugubrious sound of the night watchers. The crowing of a rooster bursts and announces the dawn ”. The organ as a sound representation of the world, as an audible equivalent of an imago mundi.

Thompson-Wipp Family

PneumoMachinic: Reading List + Further Enquiry [PDF]