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Instruments of Sound and Space

Research Open House 2024

A large space with a metal cylinder that looks like a hamster wheel. There are soft deflated balloon-like objects that look as though they are made of organic material like skin hanging from different parts of the wheel and on the floor around it.

Dr. Alex Schweder, Adjunct Professor CCE, School of Design, Departments of Industrial and Interior Design

Nick Dunston, Composer
Norbert Wuertz, Composer
Alison Soule

School of Design

A man is holding a large gray inflated object that looks like a person-sized pillow. There is a CRT television on a table beside him. The screen is facing a different direction but there are wires coming connecting the inflated object, the TV, and a small brown box that is on the table next to the TV. Another flatscreen TV is on the other side of the man.
Dr. Alex Schweder at the 2024 Research Open House. Photo Courtesy of Pratt Communications and Marketing.

Of the twenty-years that I have been investigating architecture through performance through inflatables, the last five have been guided by the possibility that the sounds of fans inherent to the medium are a place to start thinking about them as sonic instruments. This exploration has been particularly rewarding though collaborations with sound artists that this has led to. Collaborators F.M. Einheit, Mieko Suzuki, Frank Bretschneider, and Geneva Skeen represent a diverse range of backgrounds and approaches to composition that have challenged my way of thinking about the ways space and sound converge to make time-based environments. 

Nick Dunston and Norbert Wuertz joined this ensemble of esteemed sound artists to work with me toward the development of two new spatio-sonic instruments. Respectively our work focuses on wind and electronic instruments.

A large space with a metal cylinder that looks like a hamster wheel. There are soft deflated balloon-like objects that look as though they are made of organic material like skin hanging from different parts of the wheel and on the floor around it.
A large space with a metal cylinder that looks like a hamster wheet. There are soft deflated balloon-like objects that look as though they are made of organic material like skin hanging from different parts of the wheel and on the floor around it.
A large space with a metal cylinder that looks like a hamster wheet. There are soft deflated balloon-like objects that look as though they are made of organic material like skin hanging from different parts of the wheel and on the floor around it.