Annabelle McLennan
December 8, 2020
For this project, I have been experimenting with different sounds, tones and resonance that can be produced by bed springs. The bed springs as the subject comes from the implications of being "laid to rest" and the subsequent entrance into aural hell. With inspiration drawn from Dante Alighieri's descriptions of the Inferno, I have turned the bed springs into a medium to produce unearthly and "hellish" soundscapes. The process includes mounting both balanced and unbalanced contact microphones to the springs and frame of the bed and introducing exciters inspired from the text to extract different sounds.
In order to utilize these sounds in a live performance setting, I have mixed the audio files from the bed springs and created a visual accompaniment depicting an everchanging and overstimulating video, as well as lines of text from "Inferno". This video and sound come from a CRT television. Contact microphones attached to the TV and run through different effects pedals allow me to modulate the live sound in conjunction with the moving images in order to create a dynamic visual and aural infernal experience.
Click here for original bed spring audio Live performance demonstration below:Go home >:)