A speculative exploration of noise as an agent of chaos
This project is part of Voluptas, a collaborative project series initiated at ETH Zurich that reimagines design and architecture by focusing on human creativity and desire. Rather than simply making functional or beautiful spaces, Voluptas aims to rethink and reshape urban spaces in new and surprising ways to address contemporary urban challenges. Context: Semester, ETH Zurich // Timeline: Sep - Dec 2018 Tools: Adobe Premier, Adobe Photoshop, AutoCAD // Skills: Visual Design, Editing Team: Andreas Galliker, Michael Utiger, Johanna Schneider
Exploring Noise as an Agent of Chaos
For this project, my team and I followed a speculative design approach to exploring noise as an agent for chaos. In the course of one semester, we researched, interpreted and channeled noise from multiple perpectives, starting with the origin, it’s effects, and lastly, it’s potential to create something new.
Origin
What is noise and where does it come from?
Sound waves as an example of information overload (Joy Division: Unknown Pleasures)Opulant decor, typical for Roccoco, can lead to a visual information overload (Castle Linderhof)
noise (n.): [...] from latin nausea “disgust, discomfort”, literally “seasickness”.
First, we tried to understand the connection between noise and chaos. Noise comes from the Latin word nausea. This nausea occurs when different senses send conflicting impulses, or when expectations collide with reality. Chaos, on the other hand, can be defined as the interference of multiple layers that affect our perception and lead to an overload of information. Both noise and chaos therefore depend on information being received and misinterpreted.
Effect
How does noise affect us human beings as well as our natural and built surroundings?
Re-imagining urban space covered in sounds absorbing materials (collage)
“A child in the dark, gripped with fear, comforts himself by singing under his breath. [...] Lost, he takes shelter, or orients himself with his little song [...]. Home does not preexist: It was necessary to draw a circle around that uncertain and fragile center, to organize a limited space. The forces of chaos are kept outside [...].” (Deleuze, Guattari: A Thousand Plateaus)
The inevitability, yet necessity, of noise
As humans, we are constantly surrounded by noise. Often repressed into the unconscious, noise becomes something truly unbearable as soon as we become aware of it. But what would a world look like in which every instance of noise was suppressed? We would soon realize that eliminating noise from our consciousness is useless, because it will always find a way back in. As human beings, we even need a certain amount of noise, such as sound, to maintain our sanity. Instead of eliminating it, we explored a way to channel and make use of it in the following.
Potential
How can we make use of noise to create something new?
Rural environments are polluted by urban sounds, making them toxic for any living being Cities become a refuge for wildlife and humans who rely on visual communication
Imagining a world of sound-induced chaos
Our next step was to imagine the world in which our solution would be anchored. In this world, sound is carried away by strong winds and reappears elsewhere. Natural soundscapes are replaced by urban soundscapes and vice versa. As a result, noise pollution turns rural areas into hostile environments, while cities, with their natural sounds, become refuges for wildlife and humans. Everywhere, acoustic cues have lost their reliability, forcing residents to communicate through visual cues or special devices.
The Concept - Product
While sound loses its value for communication, it maintains it’s kinetic energy. This kinetic energy can be channeled and transformed into energy supplying the entire world by factories located in noise-polluted rural areas.
The Concept - Movie
Reflection & Challenges
While this project took a highly abstract and speculative approach, it really got me thinking about the way we as humans interact with our environment. Much of our world today is man-made, and the size of completely natural landscapes is shrinking by the day. As creatives, I believe it is our responsibility to constantly question the status quo, including contemporary practices of design, construction, and urbanization. Although the world we have imagined for this project may sound absurd to most, it is only a representation (albeit an exaggerated one) of a reality that humans have created and live in every single day. The effects are stark: we are disconnected from our surroundings, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of impressions that inundate us every second, and struggle to communicate our true beliefs, fears, and hopes. I see this project as a turning point in my own creative practice, which has since focused on the lasting impact we as humans can have on our environment.