[real-eyes] Really cool exhibit at the Exploritorium
- From: "Andrea Breier" <abreier@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 22:16:01 -0600
Here is something else interesting to try out.
Andrea Breier, President, Heartland Guide Dog Users
"We have different gifts, according to the grace given us." (Romans 12:6)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrea Giudice" <dawgmawm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <dawgmawm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, October 31, 2006 11:54 AM
Subject: Really cool exhibit at the Exploritorium
Hi, this seems really cool for bats and sighties alike!
The Exploratorium
3601 Lyon Street
San Francisco, CA 94123
415-563-7337
www.exploratorium.edu
Andrea
(Not in the bay area? Enjoy it on the Exploratorium's website.
see the end of this message, after the *** for more information about the
web exhibit)
Listen: Making Sense of Sound.
A show with many exhibits
Inside Bay Area, California
Friday, October 27, 2006
Exploratorium exhibit all about listening up
By Laura Casey, STAFF WRITER
925-416-4860
lcasey@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
YOU WON'T BELIEVE YOUR EARS
YOUR ears will surely deceive you at the Exploratorium's new major
exhibition, "Listen: Making Sense of Sound," a 5,000-square-foot aural
playground with more than 55 interactive exhibits.
Take a video loop of a bespectacled and bearded man that plays inside a
small room with surround speakers embedded in the walls.
Stare at him and you will be convinced he's saying, "da, da, da."
Drop your eyes from the screen or close them for a moment and he is saying,
"ba, ba, ba."
The video loop does not change in the interim. Rather it is a perceptual
phenomenon your are experiencing - a play on your ears, eyes and speech
perception called the McGurk effect. You see "da" and hear "ba." What he is
actually saying is "ga."
Confusing enough for you?
Try listening to a friend speak with the "Reversed Ears" headsets on. They
are simple, clever inventions - a hallmark of many of Exploratorium's
regular displays. The sets have one tube and one funnel-like device poking
through each earpiece.
As their name suggests, the headsets reverse the way in which the wearer
hears speech. Have a friend stand to the left of you and call your name and
it sounds like the voice is coming from the right.
"We're playing with the idea of sound and turning it around," says project
director Thomas Humphrey, who says the new "Listen" exhibit has been in the
works for three years and encompasses the efforts of hundreds of scientists,
artists and engineers.
It is the first new major exhibition at the Exploratorium since 2002, when
the center opened its "Seeing" exhibit.
"Play" is a word Humphrey uses often as he tours the dimly-lit show. He bops
around the sound room of the exhibit "Find the Groove" as he moves dials to
change the beat of a catchy bass tune.
Using an instrument called the "Pitch Slider," Humphrey makes a goofy,
high-pitched noise through the vibration of a metal rod. That noise can be
heard every, oh, 30 seconds or so as people pass near the object and play
with it.
"This exhibit is about an experience," Humphrey says. "It's about the
experience of listening - listening with your feet, listening with your
teeth and listening with your ears."
That's right, with your teeth.
An exhibit called "Sound Bite" requires users to plug their ears while they
bite down on a plastic straw surrounding a metal bar. Suddenly they can hear
American Indian hip-hop coming, otherwise silently, through a wooden box in
the middle of the display.
Humphrey says the jaw bone conducts sound, and "Sound Bite" illustrates this
point wonderfully. He adds that when you talk, you hear through both your
ears and your jaw bone. That is why when you hear your recorded voice, it
sounds different than what you hear in normal conversation.
"When you talk, the sound simply comes out of your mouth, and that is what a
recording picks up," he says.
At the "Mysterious Melodies" station, your brain tries to piece together the
melodies of familiar nursery rhymes in which some of the notes have been
altered to a pitch higher or lower than what they're supposed to be. Several
notes after the tune starts, a jumbled "Happy Birthday" or "Row, Row, Row
Your Boat" can be deciphered through the music.
The exhibit also focuses, in part, on the absence of sound. Through a nearby
video, naturalist and animal tracker Doniga Markegard helps guide users
through the "Out Quiet Yourself" piece, a gravel pit hooked to microphones
that measures how much sound you make as you cross a small room.
With each step you make, the microphones record the sound and give you a
score. The higher the score, the louder you are.
Markegard has developed a way of walking called "fox-walking" in which very
little noise is made, an absolute must in the world of animal tracking.
"People can try fox-walking through the course," Humphrey says. Usually
people go through the course once and get a high score. They then see
Markegard's video and try again. Then they take off their shoes and try
again, he says.
"They just keep trying," he adds.
As the Exploratorium is a wide-open space, the creators of this exhibit have
taken great care in making sure the sound aspects of the exhibit can be
fully heard even when the place is full. Many of the exhibits are enclosed
in sound-room quality spaces.
"We have really going to great effort to isolate the exhibits so you can
hear them," he says.
The ambient sound of the Exploratorium is also used as a teaching tool. For
example, the crew hung a glass beaker, a sheet of metal and other objects
from the roof of the building, and put a microphone on each item to see how
those elements conduct the sound of the Exploratorium.
"Basically, you are listening to the Exploratorium through a glass beaker or
you are listening to the Exploratorium through a piece of metal," Humphrey
says. "The sound you hear through a glass beaker is different than what you
hear from metal. They have their own sonic fingerprints."
Humphrey says the center made great efforts to also include the needs of
visually impaired people in the exhibit. Twelve of the 55 stations have
audio components that explain how the piece works, so non-sighted people can
enjoy the exhibition too.
There is also a five-minute presentation called "Acoustic Navigation" in
which a blind person leads listeners through an underground BART station.
The guide, Dean Hudson, immerses listeners into his world and helps sharpen
listening skills along the way.
"Listen: Making Sense of Sound" opened Oct. 21 on the second floor of the
Exploratorium; it hardly takes up one-fifth of the total Exploratorium
space. Yet it could take an engaged listener about two hours to pass through
the entirety of the exhibit.
You leave with a greater appreciation of your ears and the science behind
the sounds you hear.
You can reach
***
CAN'T GO to the Exploratorium but want to play anyway?
The Exploratorium's Web team has created an expansive Internet portal for
"Listen: Making Sense of Sound" on the museum's Web site.
Developed by a team of eight people, the site features listening games,
videos and other activities geared toward the ear.
Play Audio Pong, a twist on the classic video game that requires users to
close their eyes and move the paddle according to sounds heard from computer
speakers. Or try to distinguish between the songs of several birds and their
alarm calls.
"The main point of the Web site was to share the exhibit with people and
allow them to practice their listening skills," says Web developer Chacha
Sikes. "We wanted to offer a lot of activities that would support listening
in ways you never thought to try."
Along with games that test hearing and memory, the site offers videos of
experimental instrument builder Bart Hopkin and his works and animal tracker
Dongia Markegard pursuing animals without hardly making a sound.
There are off-line activities, too. The site gives instructions on how to
lead a friend on a blindfolded walk and how to make a membranophone from
objects found around the home.
Visit
www.exploratorium.edu/listen
(Headphones Recommended on the Listen Web site)
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