The sensor (Armadillo):
The sound played back on the sensor is of the Armadillo security device. The only possible way for me to obtain this sound (without setting an Armadillo off, which could have been dangerous) was to use a recording found on YouTube.
The soundscape:
The soundscape played in the installation was originally developed for the installation ‘01274’, I removed the sound of the Armadillo device and made some minor adjustments to present it in this installation.
The soundscape is comprised of field recordings of the arms factory (mentioned in blog 1) recorded on my phone, this was a choice made out of the necessity to be discreet in a location heavily surveilled. The recordings were composed in Ableton Live and minimally changed (a small amount of EQ and looping). The composition was originally mono, when used for the telephone, but adapted to stereo for this installation to immerse the audience in the location through the sonic.
Sound for the landline
I knew that for the landline I wanted the sound to be entirely voice. As mentioned in a previous blog, when I presented the phone in October the frequency range of the landline speaker reduced my composition and many aspects were left unheard. In the next stage of project development, I will be using interviews to play on the phone, to represent this idea within my prototype, a recording of the questions I will be asking is played, the editing of this audio is explained below.
Original recording:
Robotic audio – the one used in the prototype:
I used Auto Shift from Ableton Live’s audio effects to manipulate the recording. I wanted the voice to sound less human and more robotic.
I adjusted input to high, pitch to 5 semi-tones up, and formant by 19%.
Glitched audio:
Experimenting with the speed of the recording, I accidentally created a glitched version of the recording. I found this had an interesting sonic quality; the ‘failure’ of technology represented the unreliability of technology. This was interesting to me, considering the digitisation of surveillance technology.