Maverick Machines

This electro-acoustic system has been developed to explore the sonic properties of an environment, and reveal the way in which sound and space co-habit one another. The system uses speakers and panels of resonating metal and gains its input and mode of operation through the cyclical feedback of sound waves from the environment in which it is placed.  One sheet of metal (the speaker panel) is made to vibrate by the sound waves received up by a second sheet of metal (the pickup panel) placed nearby. The system is connected in a loop, so that the sounds that the pickup panel receives are amplified, and reproduced by the speaker panel to be received up by the pickup panel again. The system operates in this cyclical way; the sounds that it produces are determined by the resonance of the metal panels and the acoustic properties of the environment in which the machine is placed.  The machine is extremely reactive and capable of changing in real-time to anything that alters the acoustic properties of the environment that it exists within. Through this work the artist discovered that sound is an effective method with which one can explore first and second order cybernetic principles, and that the inclusion of an observer within the system parallels the work of Gordon Pask.

Richard Roberts can be contacted by email: richardroberts@oink.co.uk 

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