This article was taken from the January 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Jana Winderen uses eerie sounds to transport her viewers to spectacular worlds. Take Situation Room --a hot pink collaboration with the architect Marc Fornes, which is currently installed in New York's Storefront for Art and Architecture. "I wanted an immersive environment where the physical sound of the structure would be part of [the show]," says Norwegian-born Winderen, 49.
Fornes used generative computation to design the structure's 20 interlacing spheres, fused together using Boolean mathematics. It uses 1,673 hand-connected aluminium panels; ten transducers vibrate the structure's surface to create Winderen's surreal soundtrack. "At high frequencies," says Winderen, "the structure started to rattle, because of all the rivets and joints." So she settled on the fricative sounds of water-borne insects such as water boatmen. "They sound like crickets, and use stridulation [rubbing their limbs together] to make noise," she says. The resulting music was combined with electronic sounds. Such creations reflect Winderen's desire to make people experience the natural world -- particularly underwater -- in new ways. "It's an audible landscape," she says.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
