Nicola Rae: Reverberant Frequencies: Space Shuttle Boosters, 2022
APT OPEN STUDIOS, 6 Creekside, Deptford, London SE8 4SA. 17th - 18th Sept. 2022.
Part of Deptford X, Totally Thames and Open House festival event programmes.

 

Two surface speakers positioned within a steel drum suspended by coiled springs from a steel frame, transform this structure into a resonant speaker. Two contact microphones taped to the drum's sides transmit the reverberations to a laptop-based sound emission analyser. The sound frequency visualisations are then projected onto a Fresnel lens. Beside this a small deconstructed digital screen plays the source of the sound as film, unsynchronized to be in a different temporal space.

The recorded sound was captured during NASA Space Shuttle flights STS-117 and 127. Microphones and a camera were attached to the Space Shuttle boosters and recorded their ascent, separation and descent into the Atlantic 140 nautical miles away from their launch. Lasting only seven minutes, the recorded sound of this journey was mastered by Benny Burtt and Noah Katz.

This installation forms a physical diagram of expanded processes as sonic experiment. Through focusing on experiencing the materiality of the sound source, different perceptions of this event are amplified.