Barry Prophet
(launch Barry Prophet slideshow)
Barry Prophet’s Sound Booth is a site-specific wind sensitive sound art installation created for Ice Follies 2010. An 8ft x 8ft x 8ft high Ice Fishing Hut type structure will be modified to receive four 16ft long resonators, one extending off each wall. The interior of each resonator will be structurally enhanced with materials that are vibrated by wind to produce flapping, buzzing, whirring sounds, and by using the wind’s energy to mechanically activate sound generating devices such as the Aeolian harp, siren, whistle and rotary clapper drum. Visitors to the installation will enter the hut to hear the wind transformed into sonorous scapes of the Northern Winter.
The North and South resonators will be fastened to 6in. square internal wall openings flaring to 4ft. square external openings 16ft. out from the hut. The East and West resonators will be fastened to 4ft. square internal wall openings tapering to 6 in. at the 8ft point and then flaring to 4ft. at the external opening. (Please see Sound Booth PDF) The final compass orientation of the structure will be decided once specific sound generators have been determined and assessment of prevailing winds is complete.
The logic behind the 2 stage shape of the East/West resonators is to capture a large volume of air at the exterior opening and channel it into a narrow focus onto sound generators before distance and surface friction has diminished it’s force. Once sound is generated at the resonators’ midpoints (8ft.), the resulting sound will be amplified by the megaphone effect of the resonator’s opening flaring to 4ft. square at the hut’s interior wall openings.