THE SOUND OF ONE EAR RINGING (live looping performance – 20 mins)

This is a live looping performance with Binaural Bells played around a Dummy Head. On the day it turned out that one of the mics in the dummy head was not functioning so Gyorgy volunteered to take its place wearing his in-ear binaural mics instead.

The Microphones in the ear-canals are connected to a laptop for effects processing and then to speakers around the audience.
The Binaural Bells were constructed by 3D printing a dataset in stainless steel so that it rings. The dataset is a Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF) that describes the spatial hearing characteristic of the Dummy Head. These bells can be played as an informative sonic object or as a musical instrument.

The audience listen through Gyorgy’s ears to the HRTFs he measured from a Kemar dummy head played in a live looping performance as Physical Sonification Dataforms. Its all Very Very Recursive, and enough to give you a mental and aural headspin :)

In the last moments the feedback of the room effect through my hands on Gyorgy’s ears produces a low pulsing rumble as a finale.

This piece was performed on 22 June 2011 in the program of the ICAD 2011 Conference in Budapest.