Explorator winder Installations

Explorator winder is a soundscape augmentation artefact that produces anthrophonetic, melodic vocalisations through the winding and unwinding of a mechanical music box managed by a closed-loop DC motor control system.

This page focuses on the hyper-soundwalk installations that Explorator winder has realised. The design and construction of the Explorator winder species is covered on this page: here

Behaviour Routine

Explorator winder vocalisation logic

Winder’s vocalisation process is stochastically deter- mined using a random number generator seeded by real-time humidity levels where vocalisation probability is determined using data from environmental conditions (e.g. ambient light, humidity, and temperature), the amount of time since the last vocalisation, and the amplitude of the sonic environment. Since the species only vocalises during periods of relative quiet and therefore is less likely to mask and obscure existing in-situ sounds, the comparative loudness of the sonic environment holds the most mathematical influence. Furthermore, in addition to influencing the triggering time of vocalisations, ambient temperature readings determine the artefact’s winding speed following a similar mapping as prior species.

Realisations

Winder’s in-situ testing of the anthrophonetic placed-sounds Hyper-Soundwalk Series installation scenario began in March 2021, with several small-scale, informal test installations conducted near Grass Valley, California. The largest in-situ exhibit which utilises all three of the built Winders occurred on April 17th, 2021. The April 17th installation followed the pop-up exhibition methodology where artefacts were packed into a single backpack along with food, beverages, clothing, and a towel and were hiked to the installation location by a single person without significant strain. The artefacts were installed within twenty minutes and uninstalled in less than fifteen minutes and maintained operation throughout the day without running out of power. Despite scorching temperatures and some artefacts installed standing in a river, Winder never suffered from unwanted ingress or environmental damage and no artefacts were physically damaged during transportation or exhibition due to awareness of the artefact’s vulnerability to impact force, careful packing, and thoughtful transportation.

Winder’s physical design demonstrates a significant reduction in size and weight over prior species due to its smaller mainboard PCB, compact vocalisation mechanism, and numerous small improvements in material choice and usage. Compared to the second smallest species, Explorator clapper, Winder is 42% lighter and occupies 47% less volume. Winder’s power capacity of 22.2 W/h and average energy consumption of 663 mW/h, demonstrated an average runtime of 28.46 hours. This places the artefact between Clapper’s 47.15 hour and Spinner’s 16.24 hour expected runtimes, allowing the artefact to support extended pop-up installations without running out of power.

Real-time non-cochlear feedback originating from the mainboard PCB and the breakout PCB allowed the LEDs to light up the acrylic body, enclosure, and clear PETG motor mount. This characteristic allowed Winder to capture participant attention better. The programmed pauses between the artefact’s winding period and its vocalisation produced palpable tension somewhat similar to when one winds a jack-in-the-box. Furthermore, from a subjective perspective, the anthrophoneticinspired musical vocalisations in Winder installations produced much different sonic environments than the previously exhibited Explorator species as the eerie music-box vocalisations encouraged introspection on the effect that human society and cochlear activity has had on natural sonic environments.

After Winder plays its song, the extended period of silence before the next vocalisation had to be optimised to promote environmental listening. The listening periods were too short for initial test installations, as participants focused on the artefact until they lost interest and left. However, with the listening periods extended with later installations, participants usually examined the artefact visually before waiting near the artefact for it to act once more. During this waiting period, some participants engaged in environmental listening and therefore met the high-level research goals of this thesis. Throughout numerous formal and informal Hyper-Soundwalk Series installations, Winder served as a compact, effective, and artistically intriguing soundscape augmentation artefact and a successful fifth Explorator species.