Do You Hear What I Hear? Tonspur_passage Vienna
Our first night in Vienna my mother and I walked around, exploring without a map as per the routine for the first night anywhere new, and I noticed what I thought was the infinity symbol. My obsession with the infinity symbol dates to April of 2008 so naturally I wanted to check it out.
This lead to walking into a short passage way from which poured a strange sound. It wasn’t music but it was sound…yet it was music: the sound of of silence of sorts.
We slowed down and walked back and forth several times.
Finally, we came across a pamphlet sitting on a ledge inside the passage and were impressed to learn the following:
A mysterious Aeolian sound emanates from the TONSPUR_passage, its tonal range shifting gradually over time. The audio was collected in an experiment: a search for tones in the sound of a carriageway, inspired by the activities of Scientist Hermann von Helmholtz. Eight recordings were made simultaneously, by microphones placed in a range of acoustic filters, positioned by the side of road. Based on Helmholtz Resonators, the filters function by vibrating in ‘sympathy’ with specific tones in ambient sound, amplifying them and making them distinctly audible. The process of abstracting signal from noise is analogous to the act of listening itself, which involves focusing attention on a particular aspect of the audible. Perhaps listening also requires one to hear in ‘sympathy’: to have some affinity with the heard.
