Viewing each moment as an intersection of experiences, my project investigates the interaction between rhythm and technology. I seek to provide an alternative understanding of one’s relationship and understanding of rhythm. Through a series of varying forms and design-based research objects, the goal is to reveal how rhythm can be realized, understood, and applied through sound.

There has been a lot of work done using technology to express the connections between the visual and sound, and I’m interested in exploring how visual technology can translate, transmit, and be encoded with sound.

Within the context of this project, rhythm and experience are seen as one and the same. Whether it is the light reflecting off a city wall, the sound of the breeze blowing through a tree, or the computer on the table top, the world that surrounds us is constantly giving off some form of rhythmic pulse, both perceived and unintelligible.

Although our experiences are a part of the daily life, it does not necessarily mean that they are understood. From global warming and financial crisis to true happiness and mental health, our ability to decipher and recognize rhythms, cycles, and patterns is key to finding the balance that can exist in ourselves and our surrounding environments. With new mental models created with tangible, audio-visual interactions, we can have a deeper understanding of these daily intersections of rhythm.

We create mental models and templates¹ that allow us to understand our experiences, and these patterns are based on what we hear, see, feel, and smell. The rhythmic patterns and models that we have are not just constructed by individuals but are a key component to group understanding and learning.

In discussing rhythm, music, and our minds, Oliver Sacks, professor of neurology/psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center, wrote, “We anticipate the beat, we get rhythmic patterns as soon as we hear them, and we establish internal models or templates of them.”² Sacks discusses further the implication of rhythm and the group mind, and writes:

[t]he binding is accomplished by rhythm–not only heard but internalized, identically, in all who are present. Rhythm turns listeners into participants, makes listening active and motoric, and synchronizes the brains and minds (and, since emotion is always intertwined with music, the “hearts”) of all who participate.³

Despite my intimacy with it, answering the question “What is rhythm?” is complex. With a new set of skills and approaches gathered during my time here at Parsons, I now have the opportunity to further my exploration into answering this question. When responding to “What is rhythm?”, Lefebvre and Régulier wrote:

Everyone thinks he knows what this word means. In fact, everyone perceives it in an empirical way that is very different from knowledge; rhythm is part of the ‘lived’, but that does not mean that it is part of the ‘known’. There’s a big gap between an observation and a definition, and an even bigger one between grasping a rhythm — the rhythm of a tune, of breathing, or the beating of the heart — and being able to conceive of the simultaneous intertwining of several rhythms, their unity in diversity.⁴

With Oliver Sacks and Henri Lefebvre’s comments in mind, the following pages include set of recent sketches and prototypes:

For the “radar player”, I am moving the screen-based interaction of color, space, and sound into the physical realm.

I am building out a prototype which allows users to place physical objects in space and produce sounds with those objects by spinning a wheel.

¹ Papert.
² Sacks, 261.
³ Sacks, 262.
⁴ Lefebvre, 193.

Bibliography
Elden, Stuart, Elizabeth Lebas, and Eleonore Kofman. Henri Lefebvre: Key Writings (Continuum Collection). New Ed ed. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006.

Kluitenberg, Eric, Ari Altena, Kristina Andersen, Elizabeth Sikiardi, Daniel Van Der Velden, Frans Vogelaar, Koen Brams, Max Bruinsma, Marion Hamm, Klaas Kuitenbrouwer, Noortje Marres, Dirk Pultau, Howard Rheingold, and Saskia Sassen. Open 11: Hybrid Space. Pap/Cdr ed. Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2007.

Oliver, Sacks. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. 1st ed. New York: Knopf, 2007.

Papert, Seymour, and Idit Harel. “Situating Constructionism.” Professor Seymour Papert. http://www.papert.org/articles/SituatingConstructionism.html (accessed October 16, 2010).