The Building Reverberates Us
Bell towers are historically used to denote time, but say little about the activities that take place within or around the building. In this installation a defunct bell tower, in an otherwise busy building, was used to play back sounds indicating how much activity had taken place inside the building. Several microphones were placed in the building to collect sound threshold data. Then the system would play from a collection of bell recordings of various lengths and intensities to reflect the data gathered. The sound played through 2 pairs of ~30' spring reverb mechanisms that encompassed both stairwells. The lengths were chosen to represent the reverb time of the building if it were just one big room. Once the sound passed through the reverbs it was played through 2 large speakers in the front bell tower out to the green space below. Anyone near the building on the hour could hear the sound sometimes gently emanating and sometimes turning into a cacophony of shifting resonances.