Ambience

As part of my Advanced Public Radio class…Wait, I have to stop and tell you about this awesome class! It is like a dream come true that such a class exists and I get to take it. My weekly homework assignment is to listen to at least 7 hours of public radio each week, including Talk of the Nation, All Things Considered, Science Friday, This American Life, Marketplace, and BBC World. I also add Prairie Home Companion and Car Talk, just because they are quality shows. Then, we talk about these shows and how to produce them. I have to write and produce five mini stories over the semester. This is exactly what I want to do! It is quite difficult getting to know the equipment and software alone. But, it is also a whole new world of thinking about things from a sound perspective and retraining your ear (and mouth) for radio interviewing. So, getting back to what this blog entry is about…For class, I had to make a recording of ambient noise in some setting and then produce a 2 minute radio piece that immerses the listener in that scene.

I chose as my scene an exhibit at the Museum of Science that includes this crazy Rube-Goldberg-device-like audio-kinetic sculpture. The title of the sculpture is Archimedean Excogitation and it was done by an artist named George Rhodes. I think I’ve seen his work at an airport somewhere, but I’m not sure. Basically, it is a bunch of billiard balls racing around on metal tracks and bonking into things that make noise or cause gears and doodads to move. It was quite captivating. Children seemed to be especially fascinated with it. Parents would sit down next to the sculpture to take a break from a long day of museum exploration and let their children run around and look at the sculpture. But, then when mom and dad thought the break should be over, they’d find that their kids did not want to leave! They were completely transfixed by the sculpture and did not want to go see any of the other exhibits. We’re talking exhibits that include dinosaur bones, live hatchings of baby chicks, monkeys swinging on vines, and robots doing all sorts of things--all of these exhibits were as dull as dirt compared to this 20-year-old sculpture. How funny is that? As soon as I get the radio piece made, I’ll see if I can’t post an mp3 of it on this site.

Here are some pics I snagged from the artist’s site and a fan’s site:

[Image from: http://www.georgerhoads.com/Monumental.html]

[Image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/troybthompson/tags/ma/page4/]