Sound Sculpture, Sound Art & Audio Cubes by Barry Prophet

"I’ve been making custom sounds since 1979, first exploring micro-tonally tuned glass lithophones, moving into the Percussion Performance Sculpture Series: the Glass Box, Revolving Tone Door, Transparent Tone Arch and Sonic Hereafter and more recently, public sonic interactive sculptures Gathering of Quivers, Black Quiver, Synthecycletron (seasonally permanent interactive cycle powered electronic sound sculpture) and Sound Booth. The Chain Reaction Project is an on going exploration of materials, mechanisms, microcontrollers and their applications to interactive, portable and public sound sculptures. The goal with all these works is to make interesting looking objects that make interesting sounds.

Running parallel, and often in conjunction to making sound sculptures has been the activity of making music and Sound Art. Just as I’ve explored novel ways to make sounds acoustically, I also look for expressive ways to manipulate and trigger electro-acoustic sounds. My electric setup includes HandSonic and WaveDrum percussion synthesizers and Absynth softsynth loaded with sound samples of my field & studio recordings. Until a few months ago the softsynth was triggered by just a padKONTROL & pedal. Now I have two AudioCubes and find the level of sonic diversity has grown significantly.

My Sound Art & Environmental Music incorporates sounds gathered from the environment, interior/exterior, urban/rural. These sounds can be used as they are found or can be enhanced through effects processing or manipulated beyond recognition of the original sound source. Inferences of time, place and narrative seem to be intrinsic. I work from as broad a palette as possible.

Adding AudioCubes to my setup provides greater flexibility with managing a sound’s envelope, thereby enabling me to sculpt a sound sample in real time. Complex sounds with rich texture can change dramatically from pitch to pitch and octave to octave, turning the original, possibly familiar, sound into something other worldly. The AudioCubes also make electro-acoustic performance more interesting to watch because of the gestural manipulation of coloured cubes in space. Definitely more engaging than key entry on a laptop. I believe music performance should be engrossing to watch as well as listen to. The AudioCubes give me an enigmatic connection of gesture to sound that teases and compels.

Visit Barry Prophet's websites at

http://www.pomer-prophet.com
http://soundcloud.com/barry-prophet"