>> from the library ofcongress in washington d.c. >> anne mclean: good evening. welcome. thanks for comingto the printed instrument. tonight's panel presentation is part of our technofiles miniseriesexploring how technology influences the ways we create, performand experience music. i'm anne mclean from thelibrary's music division. it's great for us to have such avaried audience for this tonight where we look at thisexploding field
of 3d manufacture andreality computing. and, just for curiosity, how many ofpeople in the audience are involved with the field in some way? anybody? yeah, a few. you know, great. great. this is a vast andexponentially growing universe, really an ecosystem of technologies. our speakers this evening willbe showcasing a variety of ways in which the convergence
of this fascinating ecosystemis creating new design and restoration possibilities formusic creating and restoration. we'll start out with the pathconnecting the world of 3d with music, an introduction to thefield from journalist andrew wheeler and an quick, intriguingoverview from tatjana dzambazova who is a technology whispererand product manager at autodesk. her current project there is themomento program empowering artists, scientists, curators, andothers to tell their stories through the digitizationof capture reality.
robert howe is a physician andoboist currently associated with the phd program atuniversity of connecticut at storrs and is interested in the studyand replication of early versions of the oboe and saxophone. and, you have a treat in store. i won't say what that is. eric goldemburg is the cofounderof monad studio, a design and research architecturefirm based in miami. you may have seen some of his verysculptural instruments in the press
over the past few months. his colleague scott hall on the endwill demonstrate a new 3d guitar that they have designed together. he's an artist, a sculptor,also an animator and musician. so, let me turn this overto andrew for a fascinating, very state of the technologylook at music in 3d. >> andrew wheeler: thank you. [ applause ] everybody hear me?
is that good? all right. let's start with a quote. victor hugo wrote, "music expressesthat which cannot be said and on which it, on which it isimpossible to be silent." it's a real thrill forme to be speaking here at the library of congress. you can see there in anice sketch up 3d model. this isn't the exactbuilding, of course, but.
my name is andrew wheeler. i'm a journalist. my beat is 3d technology. for the last two years, i've beencovering technologies focused around capturing reality, workingwith spatial data, and using data to interact with andinfluence the physical world. i was very pleased andsurprised to receive a phone call from anne mclean to helpput together this edition of technofiles.
i had just covered a story abouta 3d printed piezoelectric violin from monad studios that lookedlike the type of instruments one of h.r. giger's monsters wouldplay as it watched the world burn. there it is. >> cool. >> anne and i startedtalking about the ways in which these technologiesare being used to create fascinating possibilities in very interestingmusical projects.
we both knew the amazing workbeing done at the university of connecticut using a combinationof computed tomography scans, 3d software, and 3d printing. bringing rare and sometimesdamaged instruments back to life is an ongoing story which you'll hear moreabout from dr. howe. i also just began working on, with autodesk on high levelconcept called reality computing. this is real 2016 shamelessplug happening march 8th
and 9th in san francisco. i knew form their amazing software and many interesting culturalprojects including building an online virtual tour of thesmithsonian's collection, that they would definitelyhave something great to contribute to this panel. while we were brainstorming on thephone one day, i began to think about the relationshipbetween musicians and the inventors ofmusical instruments.
i think it stems from an earlyfascination i have with inventors. after all, i knew whocreated the light bulb. bing. i learned who created theac motor and enabled ac power. bing. and, but it occurred to methat i had never even wondered about who invented the piano. it was the first instrument i waslucky enough to take lessons on. thanks, dad. right there. [ laughter ]
but, i never thoughtabout who invented it. right? it's a strangething to think about. so, then i, then i tried toimagine an alternate universe where the piano was never invented. i thought about things like,well, what would beethoven's "moonlight sonata"have sounded like, and how would it havebeen delivered? i guess maybe by harpsichordor a string quartet. but, then a [inaudible]notion popped into my head.
i said, "would beethovenhave invented it at all?" and, i think he would have,but it was a striking question that got right to the heart of aninteresting and more profound query. at what points in history did newlyinvented instruments find their way into the hands of thenominally talented musicians? how did musicians of beethoven'scaliber react to a new instrument? how did jimi hendrix reactwhen he first got his hands on a fender stratocaster? where are these encounters inhistory, and were the inventors
of musical instrumentsmusicians themselves? if we try to trace the evolutionof musical instruments back to their origins, we sometimeslose the trail of where they come from and who invented them. the same thing happenswith music itself. for all the tones written aboutmusical instruments in music theory, the origins of music arestill relatively unknown. now, i imagined a bunch ofearly homo sapiens listening to all the sounds of natureand trying to imitate them.
after all, we still havehunters using animal calls. except now, they aren'trequired to perfect them vocally. they can just walk out in thewoods with a bluetooth speaker, press play, hide, andwait for the kill. takes no talent. and, today, a talentedvocalist sells out stadiums, but maybe back then, atalented vocalist could mimic and consistently attract prey. in the beginning, did music help,did music evolve to help us survive,
or was it a way tocommunicate with gods? hunting rituals, harvestrituals, spiritual rituals, these are all possible explanationsfor why music came to exist. but, in the end, no oneknows where music comes from. and, it turns out that thehistorical relationship between makers and musicians issimilarly difficult to trace, but there's one fantasticexample of a maker and musician who's virtuosity and inventiveness changedthe world of music forever.
pantaleon hebenstreit was employedas a violinist, keyboard musician, and dance instructor in leipzig. he constructed, developed, andmastered a unique, enlarged version of the hammered dulcimer in 1697. in 1705, he traveled tofrance, and created a sensation with his unique instrumentand playing. louis xiv was so astonishedby his performance and the instrumentitself that he ordered it to be called the pantaleonfrom then on.
this was quite an anomalyat the time because the hammered keyboardinstruments were not nearly as popular as pluckedstring keyboard instruments. the harpsichord enjoyed hugepopularity in the baroque period, but by 1709, an italian harpsichordmaker named bartolomeo cristofori thought it was time toupdate the harpsichord. he published a remarkable design of what eventually wouldbecome the pianoforte. the keyboard design principlewas the same, but his series
of hammers striking the stringsrather than plucking them opened up a whole new rangeof possibilities for composers and performers. this changed, this transformed musicperformance and composition forever. and, those conceived andborn in italy, it was, the piano was developed overthe next four years in germany. the famous organ buildergottfried silbermann went through several iterationsof a grand piano with a vocal and harsh critic namedjohann sebastian bach
who preferred his organs. now, a remarkable innovationto the piano by a maker named johann andreasstein caught the attention of another musical luminary. in a letter to his father written in1777, wolfgang amadeus mozart wrote, "his instruments distinguishthemselves by an escapement. not one in a hundred makerstroubles himself about that, but without an escapement, apiano clatters and leaves a sound. when one presses the keys, hishammers fall down in the very moment
in which they bounceagainst the string, whether one holds thekey down or releases it." in 1821, sebastian erard inventedthe double escapement action which incorporated a repetitionlever, also called a balancier, that permitted repeating a noteeven if the key had not yet risen to its maximum vertical position. this facilitated rapidplaying of repeated notes, a musical device exploitedby franz liszt. when the invention becamepublic as revised by henri herz,
the double escapement actiongradually became standard in grand pianos andis still incorporated into all grand pianoscurrently produced. still, no one knowswhere music comes from, but it is a clear exampleof a musician who invented his owninstrument, performed on it, and inspired the creation of one of the most popularinstruments of all time. tonight, we have musiciansand makers from monad studios
and the university of connecticutas well as a trained architect and technology whisperer whobelieves in the power of technology to help people of alldisciplines and ages find, express, and amplify their own creativity. but, before we hear from them,i want to take a few minutes to introduce you to the technologythat is empowering musicians, artists, architects,and everyone else to create their ownprinted instruments. exhibit a, concordia universitystudent caleb loughlin.
now, caleb, caleb wantedan electric guitar. he could not afford it. so, he leveraged theuniversity system, enrolled in a technology courseto gain access to the 3d printer, and he downloaded stlfiles off the internet. he printed four pieces of anelectric guitar body, added strings, wiring, and a neck, and he had afully functioning electric guitar made with finishingprocesses in 24 hours. he also turned it in andgot an a, by the way.
next up, we've a 3dprinted metallophone. now, metallophones arenotoriously difficult to create even by traditionalmethods. and, this was a project thatinvolved research from colombia, mit, harvard, and disney research. i don't really know who'sinvolved there, but. the point was, they wanted to, theywanted to create a metallophone that was shaped likeanimals, and they did it. and, it was called, theycalled it the zoolophone.
good name, i guess. this is probably the toughestsaxophone of all time. the guys from industrialtechnological research institute in taiwan 3d printed this saxophonefrom titanium which is remarkable, and the printer they usedwas originally marketed for jewelry manufacturing, but itactually prints to, i think it's 50, 50 microns or the widthof a human hair. very fine, very remarkable. i'm not here to sort of cheerlead3d printing all the way though.
if you actually see metal3d printing in action, it takes quite a lot of sortof traditional band sawing and machining to actuallyremove it from the build plate. so, it's not just, youknow, it's not a catch all. it's not, not that easy. next, we have 3d printedindian tabla drums. so, this is interesting because youhave a new technology being used to create a very old instrument, and this instrument tracesback to around 200 bc.
next example is this. these guys are here. this is monad studioshornucopian dronepipe, and this is a reallyinteresting example because it shows reallywhat 3d software and 3d printing can do togetherwhich is open up the field entirely to creating new instrumentswhich i thought was a very, sort of, interesting idea. and, that doesn't meanyou can't do it
with traditional methods,but look at that thing. it looks like a black wave being,like, thrown over his shoulder. we'll have a performancefrom scott later tonight. okay, god. 3d printed electric violin. so, this guy callsit a 3dvarius, right? his name is laurant bernadac, andhe spent years iterating in software and 3d printing which isanother fascinating sort of use that you could probably applyif you're a maker of, you know,
instruments in that traditional way. you could probably applythat to your practice. but, anyway, so he designed it overand over, and what his goal was to make it sound like a stradivarius which is quite a loftyand insane goal. and, i heard the sound of it. not at all like a stradivarius. but, i applaud him fortrying and, you know, wish him luck in the future.
i don't know what elseto say about it. but, it's very cool, and this isprinted with stereolithography. and, this is a, i'm sure most ofyou are familiar with 3d printing as fuse deposition modeling whichis the thing that sort of looks like a automated glue gun. just sort of spits outplastic in what looks like a little toaster oven. by the way, the technologyin there is all the same. you got to a 3d printing show, andit basically looks like you have,
you know, the same technology inthe witness protection program. they all have different outsides. okay. so, in conclusion, we maynot know where music comes from, but i hope after tonight, we'll havea better idea of where it's going. thank you. >> tatjana dzambazova: so, myfather was a composer, is still, and [inaudible] orchestra. and, i grew up in a house wherewe had pretty much every single instrument that i never played.
so, tonight, i will nottalk about any of that. i'll leave the music to thosewho understand better than me. but, i will talk about whati understand quite well which is technology. and, we'll start with a videothat is quite high level and very visionary to kindof get things started. [ music ] i think that the dividebetween what's analog and what's digitalis starting to merge.
our physical world is sounimaginably rich in texture and in depth, but until veryrecently, our digital experiences for the most part, have been limitedto flat, 2d impressions of reality. today, innovative technologieslike 3d printing, web go, virtual reality, and augmentedreality are all redefining the ways we can experience andrecreate the world around us. so, what do all of theserevolutionary technologies have in common? they all require highquality, 3d digital models.
what does it take tomake a 3d digital model? you can create a model from scratch,geometrically constructing it by extruding and revolvingwith nerves, meshes, [inaudible] and solids. it's a laborious processrequiring complex software and high end knowledge. alternatively, you can capturethe analog world as it exists. this can be achieved withspecialized 3d scanners, but this type of hardwareis prohibitively expensive
and also requires immensetechnical expertise. every day, technology's becomingmore accessible and easier to use, but the difficulty of generatinghigh quality 3d assets has kept this trend out of the worldof 3d, until now. a new process called photogrammetryutilizes state of the art algorithms to convert regular to defaultas directly into 3d data. with smart sensors that arenow ubiquitous and new software that is exceptionally easyto use, anyone with access to a modern smartphone ora camera can now capture
and create a high quality,ready to use 3d digital model. what stories can be told when we canall digitize the world around us? for artists, being ableto easily capture, modify, and recreate physical assets opensup a universe of possibilities. when we can sculpt any object,environment, or living thing, the entire world becomesclay in our hands. for marine biologists, it's helpingthem better understand the world's everchanging oceans. for the first time ever,using photogrammetry,
scientist can measurecoral resistance with astonishing accuracy. not only does this enableus to document the state of existing corals, butwith repeated scanning, we can actually observe ecologicalchanges as they happen over time. the buddhas of bamiyan in afghanistan wereglorious sketches carved into a massive cliffover 1000 years ago. in 2001, they were destroyedforever when they were dynamited
in an act of religious extremism. like so many times in ourhistory, an invaluable piece of human heritage had been lost. except, this time, we decidedto search for the lost sketches in a place that previouslynobody would have ever thought to look, the web. between facebook, flickr, andgoogle images, there are thousands of photos of the bamiyanbuddhas taken by tourists through the decades and fromalmost every possible angle.
using photogrammetry and hundredsof these crowd sourced images, the team was able to digitallyreconstruct the bamiyan buddhas in a gloriously detailed 3d replica. one which now celebratesthe story of humanity, of all of us together preserving avital legacy for future generations. in the near future, we will beable to digitize our entire planet as it exists in every moment. this four dimensional impression of our world will enable futuregenerations to literally scroll back
and see what was really goingon in this particular part of the world at that time. we'll digitize ourselvesas well, giving our great, great grandchildren the chance to see us the way we werewhen we were their age. by being able to betterdocument our achievements as well as our mistakes, we will helpnew generations build a future for themselves thatwe can't even imagine. some stories are simplytoo big to be told
by one person or onegroup of people. from passive listeners to activeparticipants, we all have the power to take initiative in this frontierof democratized capturing creation. we're able to connect dotsdifferently to find deeper meanings in the patterns thatemerge and, consequently, we're able to beginasking better questions. these new stories can be experienceddifferently in all [inaudible] ways across time, acrossgeography, across culture, and most importantly, thesestories will mean so much more to us
because we were part of theircreation in the first place. and, to show you thatthis is not just a vision, let's take a look atcouple of projects. this is the common raven, the mostintelligent bird on the planet, and lately he's having a lot of fun. he's basically focusing on thedesert tortoises, and unfortunately and sadly, these imagesare very often to be seen in the california desert. the raven attacks the babytortoises, and basically,
we're down to one lastgeneration of tortoises. if we don't save this generation, this species in thecalifornia desert will be gone. why is this happening? because the ravens haveexplosion of population. they're about 50 timesmore than they used to be. and, who is guilty? of course, we humans. we create a lot of garbage.
we destroy the habitat. we create a lot of imbalance. so, who will fix the problem? the two people who actuallyhave a very good idea. using technology, they thoughtthey can outsmart the ravens. those two people are dr.william boarman and tim shields from hardshell labs, and they said, "let's make a technotortoise[phonetic]." basically, making fake tortoises,placing them in the desert,
and teaching the ravens somethingbetter than what he does. how they do that? they simply leverage the new sensors which is basically super highquality cameras on your phone or just any pocket camera. they take bunch of picturesof real tortoise shells, and then using the software thati'm helping them with, momento, they basically create3d digital models. and then, they print.
these are just some print replicas. which one is the true one,and which one is the fake? probably it's not easy to tell. and then, the idea is to putthe [inaudible] on top of each of the turtles so that when araven attacks, it sprays something like a pepper spraythat will not kill him. it's biodegradable. but being smart as a ravenis, after three attempts, he will say, "i'm out of here, man.
i'm not going to touchthis thing anymore." so, that's really their idea. they opened a kickstarter campaign because they're raising moneynot only to do this but also to make the ravens,the tortoises move like with a little[inaudible] robots, etc. this is the very reason whyi left architecture 15 years ago and then moved to be in technologiesbecause i really wanted to be a part of a team that creates technologies
to enable small playersto play the big game. bill and tim do not have much money. a tortoise researcher, you canimagine how much that is paid or how much funding there is there. but, leveraging technology, theyare inventing the conservation preservation 2.0, andthis is really beautiful. the next story is about dr. louisleakey who is the third generation of the famous leakey familythat for three generations and six decades has beenoperating in tanzania and kenya,
basically telling thestory of the human origins. they have found thousandsand thousands of fossils of the first hominids andhumans and animals and tools. and, for years, they wantedto share their knowledge with the world, but how? how many people go to kenya? they are in the museum ofnairobi, but it's not easy for other scientists, let alonefor teachers who teach that, or for aficionados just to see it.
so, louise was at ted,and she saw a photo booth in which we were demonstratinghow you can use normal photography to create 3d digitalmodels of the fossils. and, she loved it, and she startedtesting, and she learned how to create beautiful, 3ddigital models out of the photos that with very small means, andshe herself and couple of members of her team are doing todigitize the collection. and, they started puttingthe collection online. the site is calledafricanfossils.org,
and you can go there and youcan basically start exploring. if you're a scientist, youcan search by a fossil number. if you're just a teacher,you can start looking, showing the kids how it looks like. and, you know, instead of askingkids to open a book at second page and learn about something, theycan actually digitally touch it, explore it, look in the detail,compare them, etc. louise and her team are also allowing youto download the 3d digital model so that if you have a 3d printerin the school or download patterns
that are cardboard patternsto assemble them like a puzzle into the different skulls. this is an experiential learning. instead of just from a book,you actually can touch it, you can feel it, you can compare,wow, this guy had a bigger brain. this guy was, you know. so, she is, in a way,not only archiving and salvaging what her family hasbeen doing for three generations, but also introducing a new form
of a much more interestingway to educate. the next story is about, thecolor's a little bit faded out here, but it's a museum in sweden, amediterranean museum in sweden. they wanted to use tech tomake kind of new experiences about upcoming egyptian collectionthat they were going to open. so, they had this [inaudible]that they gave to us, and basically what the team didwas made the tomography or cat scan of the mummified bodyand then the rest of the sarcophagi andthe cartonnage.
we just took photography out of. in the end, we ended up with a 3ddigital models of the mummified body of the first, the cartonnage of thefirst sarcophagi and the second. basically, a 3d digitizedreplica of the entire artifact. and, why did we do that? well, they worked withinterspectral, a company that reallyspecializes on these new type of interactive experiences on atable that actually was placed just in front of the glass behind whichthe mummy was kind of dusting.
and, this table enables you to basically digitally unwrapthe mummy, slice through it, look into the finest detailsof every of the hieroglyphs or of the pearls, etc. and,obviously, because it was 3d and digitized, we could alsomake 3d printed replicas out of the sarcophagus. but, there was somethingeven more interesting. while they did the catscanning of the mummified body, they found 120 hidden amuletsunder the wrappings of the mummy.
without needing to unwrap them,we could actually print them and see them in real life. we actually printed thenegative and then they cast it in bronze down the amulets. quite amazing, right? so, these guys are introducingnew experiences and tactile. you have a new digital touching, andthen you have touching of something that you are not evergoing to be allowed to touch unless youunwrap the mummy, right?
the next one is closest to you. two years ago, we started aproject with the smithsonian. needless to say, biggestcollection of museum in the world. 90 museums, 137 million objects. catastrophe, right? and, for those of you who like goingto museum like me, you only see 2% because there is no space. you don't get enough buildingshere, so a lot of the stuff is in storage rooms, etc. and, avery smart, young energized team
in the smithsonian decided theremust be a solution to this. how can we show the collectionsthat we have to the whole world, not only those who cometo museums and see 2%, but everything to everybody? and, thus, how to engagethe kids of today who think that computers are everything,and they find that, you know, museums are kind of archaicinstitutions, in their opinion. so, this team starteddigitizing some iconic pieces from different museums,and at that moment, we met.
and we conceptualized together asolution that will bring museums on the cloud, accessibleto everybody online. and, this was a prototypethat we together did. it's called the smithsonianx 3d in which we started with about 20 iconic objectsfrom as small as a bit to as big as a supernova remnant. and, basically, the ideawas to put them in a browser and let people explore it while alsofollowing what the curators have spent their entire liveswith those artifacts can tell
about those subjects. we have a couple of rules. we wanted the objects to beas beautiful as in real life and not as in second life. then, we wanted to offer sometools that scientists can use, that curators can do forresearching, for comparing, for measuring, sectioning through. some objects are more interesting with what's happeninginside that outside.
profiling, then allow curatorsto define hot zones and hot spots to get additional explanationand create tours on their own. so, here is a little videothat i made, but you're welcome to explore it on your own. it's called smithsonian x 3d. this is one of the two lifemasks from around lincoln. as you can see, youcan change the setting. you can see it in 3d. you can explore it.
imagine you're a teacher. you're teaching about the mammoth. instead of saying, "openbook on page 130," you say, "download the smithsonian digitalmammoth and tell me how big was it. how tall was his leg?" etc. and, but also we wanted to usethis artifacts to make some fun, to make art, for example, a stickerfor a t-shirt out of the mammoth, etc. this is my favorite project because this is a single cosmicbuddha, unique in the world,
and the relief was so shallow thatit was not possible to read it. when we showed the curator that he actually can makethe relief deeper just because it was digitized,he was sold because this is where you see how technology todaycan help you research a little bit deeper, a little bit differentand present and explain about our past achievementsor about details of our inventions ina new, different way. obviously, again, becauseeverything is in 3d,
researchers are using 3d printoutsin order not to touch the originals, but also using them for education. we even use some other softwarethat's not for 3d printing but for cardboard making. one to 3d make, to make one on onecrates for different objects just by making the negative of theobject and then making the crate. these, i personally made. it was, it costed me about $70 andthree hours of my time versus couple of thousand dollars of a crate,for shipping, and for archiving,
etc. and, this is all possible withthis new ways of either digitizing or designing or making things. smithsonian definitely paved thepath of the future of the museums, the future of experience, the future of education, the futureof curation. so, this all sounds verysimple and easy, but actually, when all of these pioneersstarted to do that, realizing the opportunities of thetechnologies, it was very difficult. they had to learn super manysoftware that they, as curators
or scientists, was like,i'm not mechanical engineer. i cannot use this. it was a very difficultprocess and very complex. these led us to the idea byworking with these people who knew what they wanted to createa product that we call momento that basically enables you, eitherfrom photos or from laser scans or structuralized scanners,in the most easy way. this is shown with photos. you just take bunch of photos.
you load them in the software, andthen the software converts them into a 3d digital replica. at first, when you receive it,you receive something like this, and you say, wait a second. i took photos of thesculpture, and i got that mess. but, actually, thesculpture is in the middle. obviously, the photos didnot know how far to go, so they were just capturingeverything. but, then we made bunch of[inaudible] really easily.
clean up the environment, thenclose the holes if you wanted to. you print it to be, so it's like a3d photoshop, making 3d photography. but then, that photography can beturned into the real world back to cnc, to 3d printing, etc.so, why does this matter to you, and how does this relate to anythingthat you came for here tonight? well, all of these pioneers haverecognized new opportunities opened with advanced technology. in particular, withthe following trends. the trends of ubiquitoussensors, the trends of new ways
to fabrication, tocnc, to 3d printing, and trends of the powerful 3d weband augmented through anything, mixed reality, smartmobiles, etc. so, what do i mean by ubiquitoussensors? well, we're live inan age of sensors. sensors are any photo cameraon your phone, on your ipad, on your pocket camera, big camera. something that used to costcouple of thousand dollar camera, now that quality sensor,you have it on every phone
that you guys have here in the room. but, there are alsoother types of sensors. there is something thatwe call structure light which is basically photo with aprojector, and then laser scanners. they vary in price and, butthey all have the same trend. they become cheaper and better. so, they become ubiquitous. they become accessible. the second trend is aboutthe new way of making things,
the new fabrication methods. for a long time now, digital fabrication methodshave exchanged the analog method of cutting and chopping, etc. wehave now what we call cnc machines, computer numericallycontrolled machines that usually require a digitalfile to make something awesome. and, the one that is most famousis obviously the additive one, the 3d printers. and 3d printers are not interestingbecause hey you can buy them
and put them at homeand make, you know, plastic ducks and iphone covers. how many of those can we make? but, it's more interesting because you don't needknowledge to use them. they're affordable. they allow for distributivemanufacturing, meaning that they can be inmany places in the world, and instead of i design something.
i want to make it. i have to order it from china,from america, from wherever. it can be locally made. but, most interestingly aboutall the different effects in 3d printing is thatcomplexity comes for free. a printer does not careif you're printing a box or if you're printingsomething super beautiful, just like what you willsee later being done. and, this, now, leads us tothe effect that to understand
that until now, wehave been designing for subtractive manufacturingmethod. now, we have the opportunityto revisit how we design things and to start, maybe, designing withalgorithms and leveraging the fact that this 3d printers canprint very complex structures. so, something like a bikestand can be much, much lighter and much sturdier if it is makeout of [inaudible] structure, but that was not possibleto be done until now in the ways we were manufacturing.
this has a huge impacton the world of design. and, the last trend thati spoke of is the 3d web, the web go technologies, theoculus rifts in microsoft lenses, and all of these new ways allowus to experience in a new way. so, to conclude, scientists,researchers, curators, doctors, designers, artists of all kinds, they will have muchmore fun in the future. they will be able to pushtheir professions to new limits that they never thought theycould do, and this concept
of which we call rip, fix, burn. rip the reality. fix it, mix it, change it, and thenreburn it back with 3d printing or cnc or rip, fix, learn. educate in a new way. teach in a new way. experience in a new way. i believe will affectevery aspect of our lives. thank you so much.
>> robert howe: well, thankyou for your attention. i'm robert howe, and it's agreat pleasure to be invited here on behalf of my colleagues in theuconn digital musicology group. before i go any further, i'd like tothank the people who have helped us with this project, and besides thosemany people who are listed here, i have to also mention gregcase and jeffrey emerich of the coast guard band andian jackson of the university of connecticut for their help in play testing themouthpieces that we created.
this is my second appearancehere at the madison building. the first being at the americanmusical instrument society meeting six years ago. then, as now, my talkconcerned the study of antique woodwind instruments. that time, i was talking about thebaroque oboe, and now i'm talking about the early saxophone. and, the relearning of thetechniques necessary to play them in the fashion of their time.
this is a whole fieldof music study, the so-called period music movement,and it's one that i'm very involved in as a, sort of, an outsidetalented amateur and student. so, i'm interested in woodwinds, and a woodwind is typicallyblown with a reed. the mouthpiece and theattached reed are the key to understanding thewoodwind, how it sounds, how it behaves acousticallyand musically. for the reasons shown on this slide,
period woodwind artists have beenhampered by the lack of specimens with a lack of dataon the construction of early mouthpieces and reeds. for 40 years now, we've beenreviving the baroque oboe, but we still are not completelysure, for example, how the players of the day made their reeds. looking at the earliest saxophones,we have a substantial number of specimens, at least 100that are in playing condition. in my own efforts playingthese instruments,
one notes a very profoundof the mouthpiece. in these two specimens,the tenor plays very well with the original mouthpiecewhich we're fortunate to have. but, no modern mouthpiece,even those that are said to copy sax's designs,have been suitable. so, i wrote to the guythat sells the mouthpieces that he says are copied after sax'sdesigns, and he says, "oh, no. i've never seen one, but thisis what i think they should be from what i've read."
well, he's doing the best he can,but, you know, as for the alto on the right, i have found no modernmouthpiece which permits this horn to play at a suitable pitch thatwould have been at the time, nor one that permits it toplay in tune with itself. and, the antique mouthpiece thati received with it which is not of sax's manufacture doesn't doany better than the modern one. and, this tells us thatsax had some unique element in his mouthpiece designwhich has not been carried down to modern times or elements.
the surviving sax, saxophonemouthpieces are very few and have not been systematicallystudies. being extremely fortunateto have access to the tenor saxophonemouthpiece and the instrument with which it was built, i wondered if i could determinethe characteristics that make it successful. if i could replicate it, andif one could then apply those characteristics to otherspecies of saxophone,
soprano, alto, and baritone. but, first, i wondered, isthis a legitimate exercise. is it correct to derive mouthpiecesfor other species from the tenor? and, going back to first sources,sax's 1846 patent for the saxophone, displays the mouthpiecevery prominently. it's shown thrice on thedocument with the mouthpieces on the two specimensthat are sketched being essentially identical. this one on the left iswhat we would call, now,
a baritone saxophone, and the form on the right never madeit into production. but, he answered my questionas to whether it was legitimate to scale them up and scale themdown in his own patent application. there's the answer. now, as a physician by day, i dealwith medical imaging every day of my life, and i have aninterest in ultrasound and ct. and, i've been using ct to look at the fine details ofwoodwind manufacture.
micro ct, that is to say ct withpixel sizes in the micrometer range, 1/1000 of a millimeter, allows us to study objects withextreme precision. and, of course, any ct allows usto view the anatomy of an object from any point of viewwithout taking measurements and without doing anything thatmight damage the instruments. and, just to clarify for everyone, what's the differencebetween x-ray and ct? the gentleman on the left isbeing subject to an x-ray.
there's a plate behind himand a beam is going to go through his chest andexpose the plate. it's instantaneous, but it onlygives you a 2d object, oh, 2d view. the woman on the right who'sgoing to be subject to a ct, that torus has beams, hasbeams that are going to come from all directions around her, and then there aredetectors on the other side. so, just as you were displaying herewith the cameras, we'll get a myriad of views which are then summed bythe computer to create a 3d file
that can be viewed fromany desired object. so, to do the work on the saxophone,i needed an expert in micro ct, and i was fortunate to find dr. sinashahbazmohamadi who is the director, now, if imaging at the chase labsat university of connecticut. and, my advisor, richard bass,helped out also from musicological and administrative points of view. then, we were very,we are very fortunate that sina's wife zahra[assumed spelling], who is also a mechanical engineer,was able to become our consultant
for additive manufacture. we did some initial work onthe instruments that richard and i are holding, the curvedenglish horn and the recorder, and then you can see that dr.shahbazmohamadi is holding the tenor saxophone in question with oneof our replicated mouthpieces. in his, in his micro ct work, sina used the standard industrialequipment at two labs a uconn, and he performed ourdata manipulation. here to show you howthat's done on the right.
on the leftmost part of theimage, there's the x-ray source. then, in the middle, thatorange yellow thing is the tie on an oboe reed, andit's in a holder which will rotate 1/1000thof a circle. then, the ten secondexposure's taken. then, it moves 1/1000th of a circleso as to get that myriad of views that we need for the ct analysis. and then, the detectoris on the far right. sina and i were, then,able to do manipulation
and clarification of the data. we benefitted very muchfrom the advantages of micro computed tomography,and the last one, of course, the last two are the ones that areof substantial importance to us in a saxophone mouthpiece. the internal geometry isnotoriously difficult to measure, and we could translateit into some form for added manufactureof computerized milling. the disadvantages of micro ct,however are not, are not trivial.
the greatest one beingthe limited specimen size. the largest specimen thatour machine can handle is ten centimeters in dimension, so weare obliged, for something as small as a saxophone mouthpiece,to take two views and then to stitch them digitally. y'all should take this for granted. here's how additivemanufacture works. you take a cad file. you create another file out ofthat, and you lay it down in layers.
it's the creation of an object byapplying thin layer of material, one atop the other, rather than removing materialfrom a larger block. so, instead of taking a pieceof stone and removing everything that doesn't look like abunny, you take nothing and you add all the stuffthat does look like a bunny, and you end up with a bunny. but, the important thing's thatit permits extreme precision and unlimited numbers of copies.
this is, this is alow complexity machine at work, probably making a bunny. so, here's the foot joint onthe left of an antique recorder by cahuzac [assumed spelling] circa1750, and then there's a copy made by a professional recorder maker, and then there's four identicalcopies that sina and i made. my daughter, katherine, isgoing to pass some of those around for you all to inspect. please understand that the jointsshe's passing around are early,
early iterations and that ourquality control has gotten better. but, they'll give you anidea of what they are. the four on the right are, you know,they were produced just as easily as making one would have been. it's just a matter of tellingthe machine how many times to lay it down, and you canmake it, you can take a plate and make 100 at time if you want. in our first presentation ofthis project, sina demonstrated that the micro ct and additivemanufacture copies were actually
closer to the originalthan the copies made by a professional recorder maker. and, he also demonstrated, by takingcts of our copies and comparing them to cts of the original and of theartisan copy, that the dimensions that are hardest totake by a craftsman, particularly the internaldiameters of tone holes where you're measuringat a deep level. those showed the greatestadvantage for micro ct. so, the method had an error ofless than 1% in all dimensions.
it was within the errorof my measurements. so, here's the anatomy ofa saxophone mouthpiece, and look particularly atthe upper one on the left. it shows the tip opening. that's the place where the air goes through between thereed and the mouthpiece. and, the reed has its excursionbetween this position you see and the tip of the mouthpiece. if the reed is too soft,
the player's breath will just blowit shut and no sound will issue. look on the lower oneat the lay and rails. you see those slender pieces there? here's the mouthpiece from bflat tenor saxophone 39116, and you see the surfacerendering that we took by ct. look at the detailthat ct gives you. you can even see, you cancompare the color on here where the grain differs andthat's picked up on the ct. taking slices of ctis called a tomogram.
it's a leftover term fromtraditional radiology, and here's some transverse tomogramsfrom the saxophone mouthpiece. so, in the center of thatbaffle area that i showed you between the two rails, you can seethat the inside, it's not spherical. it's not circular. it has a fairly complicated,handmade shape. whereas, down in the shankthat goes on to the neck of the instrument, it'sperfectly circular. and, the join between those two,
those two chambers,is fairly abrupt. we could also see, and i don'tshow it here, at the very bottom, take the left image, the piece onthe left, the tongue sticking up. at the very tip of that,there's a complicated anatomy of several curve's intersectionwhich is probably from the way that it's hand fabricatedthat hasn't been recognized by modern makers, andi think may be part of the what is uniqueabout the sax design. i spent, i spent a few hours wastingtime trying to take measurements
by hand, and as you can see, you canget very, very fine measurements, but you can see the very, verytedious to do that and to turn that into a reamer to createa mouthpiece would be of, would be just prohibitivelydifficult to get accurate, accurate milling andcreation, unless, of course, you use the digital method. so, it made more sense to us to godirectly to a computerized 3d source such as additive manufacture. so, zahra made a rough copy forus, and it's not shown here.
and, we were very pleasedby its utility. it played okay, so we didjust like you were saying. i needed a, i was overseasand i needed it. so, we sent the data to a company infrance, and then they overnighted it to me in brussels, and a had aworking copy like 16 hours later. a day and 16 hours later. it just took no time at all,and the son of a gun plays. it plays wonderfully. it plays better than theoriginal which suggests
that there may be either abias on my part or a matter of the material that's being used. perhaps the latter. so, very pleased bythese initial results. i measured the bore of each speciesof adolf sax's saxophone, soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone. and, using tenor as 100%, i scaledthe mouthpiece designs up and down to the relative bore sizes, and wecreated a family of mouthpieces. katie's going to pass aroundsome of the soprano mouthpieces,
just showing how i madethem at 76%, 78%, 72%. we tried different sizesuntil we found the one that gave us the best acousticalresults on the instrument. when you, when you study this,don't only, don't just look at them. also, feel them, and you'll feelone of the flaws for this method, and we'll talk aboutthat in a moment. so, how do they play? you will ask, how do they play? well, i have here adolf sax'ssoprano 32194 from 1866,
and i'm going to play it firstwith a modern mouthpiece and then with our uconn mouthpiece. and, i ask you to pardonmy not having warmed up. this is the treat to whichanne referred, and the treat is that i'll only playit for a short time. now, this is a [inaudible]mouthpiece from the 1990s. yeah, this is the originalinstrument. 1866. not quite inperfect condition. it has, you'll hearthere's a few leaks on it,
but enough to make the point. there's a modern mouthpiece in it. and with our copy here. this is very, the ligaturedoesn't quite fit, so it's a fussy thing to get right. [ inaudible speaker ] the other one's called ebonite. it's a plastic. it's been used formouthpieces for 130 years.
when that material became available, manufacturers abandonedwooden mouthpieces overnight because it's stable, andthe mouthpiece, you know, is the part that's in your mouthand it warps and cracks and chips. and, a stable one's a good thing. now, that's not quite on par. so, if you'll pardon theleft hand being [inaudible]. no woodwind player'sever happy with his reed. it's a softer, more covered mellowsound than a modern would give,
and we were very fortunateto have the cooperation from our performance people at uconnwho gave up a week out their lives to work intensively on this. i'm going to start this now. i hope it's not too loud, but thisis the uconn faculty saxophonists and a graduate student withyours truly playing tenor. just for 20 secondsof quartet from 1856. >> we touch one, and it's like,you know, an unbelievable honor. so, that's what they sound like.
so, the soprano worked fine. the problematic alto that ishowed you before was tamed by the mouthpiece. it plays in tune, and it played atthe correct pitches, saxes time, and i had a slide showing that. so, here's the family we created,and this is a fellow that i just met at a music shop playingon one of my mouthpieces. and, this is the problematic altowith the mouthpiece that i got with it which doesn't work, butit plays beautifully at a438
with the uconn mouthpiece. the tenor, as i say, plays aswell or better with the replica than with the original, and thebaritone plays just magnificently. it sounded great. now, there are differences, and thisis why we do period music is to find out what is different and learnfrom it and then be able to do it. the tip opening on the sax original. go back to that slide i showed youof saxophone mouthpiece anatomy. the tip opening is very, very small,
about 1/3 of what it ison modern mouthpieces. this requires a harder reed,so it doesn't just flap shut. and, a harder reed reduces theresponsiveness of the instrument, but it enriches their sound. so, the tenor and the sopranoalso required narrower reeds than are sold today. and, i was fortunate to have a box of specialty narrow tenorsaxophone reeds in my basement. i don't know why ihad them, but i did.
you know, if you live long enough, everything you have willeventually become useful. and, b flat clarinet reedsturned out to work fine on the soprano mouthpiece. now, the period saxophoneworld is a small one, and as word of our work got out,new mouthpieces came to the fore. and so, i got some measurementsjust with calipers, not with ct. i was very pleased to find thatour measurements for the alto and the baritone agreed within afew percent with sax's original.
for the soprano, however, saxdidn't follow his own advice. he didn't simply scaledown, scale down the bass. he made a squat, wide mouthpiecewhich, of course, works wonderfully and which is more of a modelfor how things are done today. but, it was interesting. although, you can see my dimensionsvery, very much from the original, the volume contained within itis only 3% different, and that's, that's a major factor tothe intonation and pitch of the instrument is thevolume within the mouthpiece.
so, sax deviated fromhis own design, but his own design would haveworked perfectly well, we think. there are flaws in the method, andif you've had those mouthpieces in your hands that i'm passingaround, you'll find on the lay, on the rails, there'slittle irregularities. and, this is, this is steppingartifact, with additive manufacture, each time you have a layer endand the next one continues, it's like little stepping stone,and so it's a little bit imperfect. also, if you saw on therecorder foot joints
that we were passing around,they're kind of rough and scaly on the outside, and that'sa so-called grain artifact that distorts surfaces. we also find that one externalsurface, the one that's on the manufacturingplate, is perfectly smooth, and the other ones have thesepotential for artifacts. and, one that's important, i think, is that copying somethingpropagates any unrecognized changes that have happened in it, and justsomething we have to do carefully.
we've considered the numerousdirections for further research in this, but right now,we're limiting ourselves to improving the mouthpiecemanufacture and to getting ourcurrent work published. there's only, you know,there's only 24 hours in a day, and we all have, weall have business. but, it's interesting to findthat there is a physician out in minnesota who has donect on a stradivarius and broken down the images into individualparts, and you can get a copy
of this violin made by cnc millingwhich is actually put together by luthiers, not bygynecologists or radiologists. and, they play perfectly well. there is substantial work beingdone on string instruments which is, of course, where the moneyis in musical instruments, and in some of the european labs. we are very fortunate that ourwork was published in our journal of first choice before wewere even finished with it, and i think this is in large partbecause this is really something
that required a university,not a conservatory and not a technical institute. you needed to have musicpeople and you needed to have engineeringpeople and you needed to have imaging peopleto make this work. so, it's part of thebringing together, i think, intellectually, of the project. so, in summary, we use microct to create a data file of an adolf sax tenorsaxophone mouthpiece.
we modified the datato create a family of working mouthpiecesby additive manufacture. the method works, and withrefinement, we will produce all of the mouthpieces we need,perhaps using cnc milling rather than additive manufacture. groucho marx, excuse me,told us that "it ain't over 'til the fat lady sings." the lady in the upper right issinging, and my talk is over. i thank you for your attention.
oh, there's two, there's two placesyou can find a longer playing of the saxophone quartet. if you go to google and google"uconn today sax mouthpiece". hits one and three are two separateradio reports that we've had on this work that have thequartet playing at length. they're really nice. >> eric goldemberg: hi. i'm the fat lady. my name is eric goldembergfrom monad studio,
and one of two componentsof monad studio that i want is veronica zalcbergwho's in miami with our two kids. and, i'm very gratefuland honored to be here thank you, andrew. thank you, anne for the [inaudible]and also for inviting scott, and i would like to show you what,in a way, i'm going to focus, of course, on the music instruments and sonic installationsthat were done recently. there's a whole, a very longtrajectory leading to this,
and still myself tryingto understand why we end up designing music instrumentbut i am an architect. and, monad studio isan architecture firm. that's mostly experimentalprojects derived from competition and digital design,and i'm also professor of architecture at fiu in miami. and, but let's get started. so, in a way, just toput it simply, if i can. i want to show you why i thinkwhat i, what we've been doing
and these trajectory's about. it's about bringing thesurfaces of architecture that usually surround us, but thecertain space that they define and we are smaller entity inthat space, as many as we may be. and, i just wanted to bringall those surfaces much closer to the body. i think this whole presentation isabout that and the whole big part of the motivation of doing musicinstruments is more like going into body prosthesis, prostheticson my part rather than the music
which i leave to my great partnerscott here who's also a designer. and so, this is the cover of abook that i've done recently called "pulsation in architecture",and it's my research on a certain obsessionabout rhythmicity or rhythm in architecture, the perceptionof rhythm or the sensate quality of rhythms in architecture. especially the kind of architecturethat's cropped since the last 20, 15 years or so that'svery much influenced by the digital technologies, wherethere's a lot of like topology
and surface manipulation and such. let me just try something. it's the images beingcropped a little bit. just try something. good. so, i'm justgoing to run through a, just to give you a backgroundof this kind of 15 to 20 years of my own trajectory in architectureassociated with competition and advanced digital design. i'm going to just show youproductivity projects and then move
on to what's interestingfor us tonight. so, this is a project that wewere invited to participate in by the museum ofmodern art in new york. they do this yearly programcalled young architects program, and the ps1 in queens. and so, basically, i'm not going toget too much into the architecture because you guys did notknow that you were going to get any architecture tonight. so, i'm not going to force itinto you, but this is a project
where i think it's, for us itwas our first deliberate attempt to really investigate a lot ofthis idea of rhythm and rhythmicity and rhythm perceptionin the architecture. and, of course, there'stheir story, elevated tracks, couple of blocks away from ps1,and everybody that goes to ps1 has to take this train, mostly. so, this is an expense that youreally have when you're going to go to these, to these parties thatare held every saturday with music and djs and whatnotat the open courtyards
that the ps1 museum has in queens. and, so what you seehere is the top view, a plan view of what'sgrey is existing museum. everything that's white is theopen courtyards that there are that you have to traversein order to get from the street to the institution. and, basically, where designingis, it's a large installation slash like large tent like structure that will also host theseparties every weekend.
and, i just feel like i haveto go faster through this. but, what you're seeing is, i thinkthis image is key in that the way, it's about perceptionbecause the way. this was probably, it's2008, but i was trying to photograph the traintracks very quickly because there werecops that didn't like. you can imagine a guy in new yorktaking photos of the train tracks for a long time and thestructures from the [inaudible]. and, really, they grabbedme, and they had me.
lucky, they didn'ttake away my photos, but what i like about,it's not that. it's the fact thatthey're rather big, right? so, in order to capture that, i hadto do where there wasn't any kind of technology such aspanorama or stitcher. in the camera, i justtook many of these photos and reconstructed like[inaudible], right? so, actually like that technique. that was, i was using creativelythat technique all the time,
and the result is you don't get thekind of smoothness or the continuity that a real train tracks have. but, you get this kind of faceted,disjointed sense of continuity which nevertheless provides thesense that what you actually see, your psyche associates this ina way to which you perceive it. but, it's completelydifferent, of course. so, we decided to do ourproject in the same manner. it actually start with something, because also because thiscompetition has a really low budget
for an architect, so and we werevery interested in curvature. all that you see tonight is a lotof curves and topological surfaces. we wanted to convey that with, but in very simple waywith faceted surfaces. so, i tried to do thesame thing that was done to the photographs [inaudible]post operational procedure to really start with that. so, this project is at theaggregation of certain series of modules that they are rhythmicalbut every single component
of that rhythm changes, right? so, it's kind of modulativerhythm, and every single, there's a basic component forthe space that has, is repeated, but no single element that formpart of a component is equal because there's kind of this notionof the overall movement, right? so, it's about differentspeeds in perception. there's a part where you go throughand if there's a straight trajectory from the street into themuseum, they just kind of bypass this project or there'sanother part where these kind
of lounge tools andareas where there's much of a lounge-y, likeslower perception. that's kind of that space,and there's all these cuts that are produced by rupture between the modules,the [inaudible] project. through those cuts, you cantraverse these two realms. so, that would be in areal view of the project. it latches on to an existing wall,and that would, we didn't win. we came in second.
unfortunately, the winner onlyis the one that gets to build it, but so as i was saying, this [inaudible] is kindof like about the body. so, we were obsessed withthe segmented animals that have segmented bodies suchas the lobster which was really, we were trying to see what kindof intelligent logic is there in the body of that animal thatwe could appropriate or hack onto into two kind of,but these are these kind of rather large architectural bodythat you could have it, right?
so, this is actually the structures. underneath that, and anyways. moving on to the second architectureproject that i just only want to throw in and background. i'm not getting into it too much. this is a project with it formy hometown from buenos aires, argentina for the port ofbuenos aires, and it's a project for a large performing arts center. much larger than previousproject, right?
so, i'm going to upwards in scalein the architectural projects, and this one really was tryingto index look, first observe and understand an index effects ofturbulence in liquids and see what of that could we alsoappropriate for architecture and produce this project thatis set in a way that it's really on the wharf on the main wharf thatgives access to the puerto madero, the main port which is formerindustrial port transforming to kind of cultural officearea in bueno aires. and, this is trying to set kind ofa first layer between the river,
the large river that rio de laplata in argentina and the port where it's kind of like asecond horizon where this kind of rhythmical progressionwith distortion is set up. and, in that sense, architecturehas a lot of inherent repetition within just look at anythingin a [inaudible] from facades to the modulation of that wall. you know, it's reallyanything has to be panelized so [inaudible] components. there's no single surface thatwill be used, you know, that big.
so, taking on that given situationand then using that as enhancing that as an aesthetic and perceptualdevice is what this projects are doing. and, again, i'm just bypassinga lot and moving through it, but it was also doing iskind of offering itself as a, more as a landscaperather than as a building. and, counterpoint existenttowers that kind of punctuate the waterfrontof the city of buenos aires. so, this becomes a very democratic,very open surface that people can,
the rule from the projectis successful for events and things like this. so, the whole geometrywith all this pathways and all these gangways is meant tobring people into those surfaces. and, in a way, it has several kinds. this is very convolutedrhythm of juxtaposed ramps and whatnot that bring people in. and then, there's very kind ofrepetitive but with variation, linear rhythm is the[inaudible] horizon, right?
then, this is kind ofdrawings that we do, and part of architectural stuff. i mean, i call this, i mean inaturally call this architecture. i'm not sure that youthink these are, this is what you normallyassociate with architecture. i don't see much of these inthe skyline in washington. i don't know. maybe soon. so, moving on with this.
just for you to get a grasp thatwhat you will see next is sort of coming from somewhereand not from music, right? so, that's kind of, that's thereason i'm throwing it in today. of course, you know, inour perception of rhythm, i think goes hand inhand with the notion of sensuality and music in itself. i mean, it's probably legacies,i mean lots and lots of books that speak about these beyondmy own capacity to look into, but we find this idea ofrhythmic progressions also in many
in formations in nature suchas the strangler fig trees which are everywhere in florida. they're fascinating and alsovery time based processes which can observe from theroots of trees that grow over existing trees and,you know, kind of cohabitate and [inaudible] fightfor [inaudible] until the 200 years later. maybe, the host tree takes over andexhausts the parasite tree, sorry, takes over the host tree, and youget this kind of open lattices
of depleted structures, right? this one right here which areabsolutely wonderful and beautiful, and it's kind of, i think i'mgiving up, i'm giving away a lot by showing you these imagesbecause then everything else, you'd think it's justreplications of these, right? and again, that's the only thing. this is a trick, as gentlemanpresented before had his own trick. our trick is only thing we dois we been copying this stuff in the workplace.
the other project, the lastproject i'm showing which is this, is the growing much more in scale. this is a project for the, it'sin memorial for the victims of the tsunami that happenedin thailand a few years ago, and it's 300 meters long. it's an international competition, and it's part of amuch larger jungle. the project was on a site that had avery small drainage up on the right. it's [inaudible] thatwent down about 25,
30 degrees down towards the beach. and, what we did is we decidedin order to do a memorial for such a dramatic event, to reallymake a landscape project that was like a collection of courtyards andthat these courtyards would line up stringed by these kind of [inaudible] channelwhich [inaudible]. so, we made the presenceof water part of the commemorationof the dead, right? so, and also what you see hereis many of those courtyards
and the green that you see isthe kind of interspatial spaces between the courtyards where[inaudible] colleges will grow and new life will be cultivated. so, any case, it's a productthat is, that has a lot to do with repetition with, repetition with variation playedout throughout. there's no two singleinstances that are the same in which this courtyardsare laid out. but, rather it's a collectionof multiple possible variations
out of a very simple initial unitwhich is this courtyard here. and then, ultimately has some. this is the layout. we have, you see, it's very longpads, and there are some canopies that hold over this courtyard. and then, there arethose places where kind of new natural growthhappens and going further into the details is typicallyhow we proceed with, you know, kind of excavating, givemuch, much more detail.
these canopies are also largepouches that collect water and kind of [inaudible] throughoutthe project. so, it's kind of tubular. tubes that come out ofthem that bring down water, and they also become railings and they also become pathfindingelements throughout the project, right? so, this comes in effectof synthesis in that way, and in this project's the idea ofkind of second device that latches
onto its host and becomesone with it, symbiotically. it's present. so, i'm just laying downsome of the tropes that were, are constantly part of whatwe do when we do architecture that are there so that we kind ofcan shift now and begin to look at some of these thingsthat we have built recently. so, that was growing inskill, and i would have go down in scale significantly. this is a project thatwas commissioned to us
for the metropolitan gallery inone of these recent, very large, three painting conferenceswhich has this, some of these conferenceshave an art section and a fashion section and what not. so, as an art sectionslash architecture section that we were invited, and withit, we produced some structure that i don't know yet what it is. honestly, i just don'tknow that it has any use, and it's also not a sculpture.
in, but i guess peoplecall it a sculpture. it's mostly an explorationof rhythmical was in which you can embeddifferent kinds of rhythms within other rhythms. this project was done alsocombining two digital fabrication technologies, one isthe cnc milling, and the other one is 3d printing[inaudible] position modeling. so, what you see here isthis larger kind of element. call it something, then receivesanother layer of smaller rhythms
that are embedded withinsome of these cavities. in, throughout, i mean, this wasone of the first times that some of those more conceptual and morespeculative architecture projects have the chance to be exploredin, of course, very reduced scale. but, the reason i wanted you to seethose architecture projects first is because now the, exactly thesame techniques that are used in 3d modeling, we use a softwarecalled maya from autodesk. and, the same way we think aboutthose projects, now, is, in a way, it's a scaleless problem.
you can shift scales withnot difficulty at all, even some dna types of linesand moves and surfaces used for a master plan, you canuse for a door handle, right? so, we definitely take advantageof that, and, but it also, along the process of doing that,you discover effects of [inaudible] and effects of machining andprogramming how you want the machine to cut certain materials. or, in the case of thecnc milling machine, the way the machineoperates is it moves
by sculpting away froma solid piece. in this case, we used ahigh density foam for that. leaves a certain scoringof the passes, and you can, we can play around with that,play with different kinds of ways to produce texture. so, there's i guess theseproject was a way of, in a way, i guess the first time that i showedor that scott saw these, he told me, but that is a music instrument. i said, "what the?"
i mean, i can't say that,but you are absolutely right. and, i think we werecommunicating with scott. this was probably what,three or more years ago? there was a previousversion of these that where that conversation took place. and, then, at some point, hecame to our studio in miami, and he brought other things. he just kind of brought likea strange person that has, i mean, he will play that.
plays like a musician, but he alsohas any number of other wizardry with things that you wouldn'tthink is coming from a musician. but, it creates absolutely gorgeousmusic out of something like this. so, he saw the opportunities andgets what was presently the project. inherent in the project was allthis kind of experimentation with your kind of sensualunderstanding of rhythm, intuitive understanding ofrhythm which is coming from us. and so, this project hadseveral different iterations. the last one was kind ofmore like a coffee table,
elevate about three or, i mean,about four feet from the ground. and so, we had an upper surface anda downward surface and undercarriage of sorts which sortof were the same, but then the undercarriagedeveloped the legs and was kind of much more interestingin that way. and, in that case, again,combining different, just playing around withdifferent [inaudible] technologies, the legs were treated [inaudible]. so, they were, in a way,like the project was kind
of in still, on stilettos. in the, in, when this was puton that, in the exhibition, everybody was asking,"so, can i sit on it?" no! i mean, are you crazy, andcan, "what can i do with it?" i mean, it's there, right? so, just feel it. so, and that is a reason why i thinkit's not clear to me what it is because i'm not sure it issomething of that scale. my mind maybe this is a large,again, performing arts center
and you're underneath it, right, and [inaudible] big columnsare supporting it, right? so, in a way, architecture's allof the stuff that we've been doing that has to do with product designand with objects is very impregnated with our ways of thinkingand conceiving architecture. and then, you can see how thoselegs are really picking up on some of the main lines of articulationof the longitudinal rhythms of this project and bringdown to much more detail. the point that receives thestructural weight of a project
and transmits it to the ground. ultimately, this is whatthe upper surface looks like with all these sortof nestle different scales of rhythmical progressions. and, this is probably my favoriteimage where [inaudible] thinks that, okay, 3d printing or cnc[inaudible] is about pushing buttons and transferring digital informationto physical constructions, and it's much more a kind ofcraft involved, handcraft. like, in this project, there wasa lot of selective sanding to kind
of be able to leave that certainkind of scalloping in some parts, in a different kind of scaleof scalloping in others. to, so playing around with howthat would relate to the ultimate, the uppermost layer ofrepetitive 3d printer components. so, there's a lot of investmentto obtain those effects, and when we sent this from miamito new york, what we sent along with it was a mirror surface that would also reveal whatthe undercarriage was like. and, as you can see,this is a rendering.
it's not a photo because, of course,it arrived completely shattered. so, we learned that it, youknow, have it cut locally. you know, have a mirror cut locally. those were, so that was kind of,kind of playing around with ideas of symmetry, more than [inaudible]. and, like i said, this hadno, we had no use for it. so, i just, i guess it was somethingabout, so definitely about the vibe. that give you an idea ofhow big or small that was. and, for, i don't knowfor which bodies or what.
you know, this is, what you'reseeing here is we played around a lot with imagerywhen thinking about projects, and we were invited,commissioned to do another project for a gallery called design mattersin l.a. and, this was a great brief that curators of that showhave which combine sci-fi, architecture, and eroticism. so, perfect. down our alley. so, that seemed to be thingsgoing back to giger, right?
>> right. >> eric goldemberg: thisproject, i think this, the first one we really began tointeract with scott in terms of, i mean, long distance conversationsabout the possibilities of bringing sonic components tothe architectural installations that we're doing around this time. and, at the same time, the curatorasked us to sort of get some images out so they could do their campaignto raise funds for projects. so, our first way we were developingthe actual thing that was going
to be built, we created thiskind of affect like imagery that would tell thestory of this project. so, i think these are thepossibility the best images about, if not that one where i'mon the [inaudible] project, to tell about the relation,the kind of prosthetics, the way in which we begin to thinkabout in terms of prosthetics when we think about music andproducing objects, instruments. so, that's kind of a faã§ade, a view image of what thestructure we thought of making
which was ordinarily not madeof, not yet, at least not yet which was basicallya, you know, speakers. you know, typical marshall styleof speaker is a vertical condition. we thought of come tumbling downthe speaker and then holding that in and showed them, and i showedthem height with a kind of these typical structuresthat you've seen us make before. and, since those are tubularand they look like roots, we thought those were actuallythe optimal opportunity for wind instruments to be part of,for a wind [inaudible] to be part
of this kind of complex instrumentwhich will include ultimately a dj, will include scott sitting on this and playing some stringsand blowing on it. and, that's a top view of that, so it'll have two typesof output for sound. one would be kind of, kindof multidirectional surface of the grill of the speaker. that won't be the directivesounds coming out of those tubes. and, we just went throughwith that brief.
we took it whole heartedly. so, but, you know, we takethese things kind of really, we think it's important tokind of convey the sensations of what you're working with inthat the architecture and the ways in which the body couldpotentially interact with architecture areabsolutely interesting, at least fascinating for us. and, these are some of the typicaltests that we do at our office. we have this makerbotmachines and what not.
also, have a lot of thoseat fiu or we have a lab where [inaudible] hasprovided a machine so every two students can share one. we have like 38 machines or so. so, it's great. it's a luxury. and so, these are smallerprints, but then also playing around these images that we wereasked to provide for, you know, participation of the show.
we thought, okay. we're going to keep playingaround with scale, with the scale of the object, and somethingwhich was large enough to hold the upper bodies, youknow, we reduced it completely and snugly applied it to this body. and, that was kind of an intuition of what could be possiblein terms of prosthetics. it's kind of not yet trying toproduce an instrument in that way, but we're just envisioningsomething that we did later.
but, for that show, that isthe scale that was meant to be, in that small detailsand that speaker. and, that's going tofurther work on the project, and the project gets refined. and, at some point, youbegin to develop the logic of how you're going to produce theparts of it in a logical assembly. i think that's still going on. but, anyways, those aremore detailed images of it. what you see, kind of translucentsurface on we're looking
from the top down, is the surfaceof the speaker which is that. and then, you see these highersurface here is where the, at the height of adj cannot play there. he's [inaudible], andthat's that project. now, this is really the first, ineffect, project where we were able to collaborate with scott, andwe also created, literally, we created a guitar for it. so, that's really the first productof our collaboration with him. but, this is a mural that wascreated for, it's a sonic mural,
really, created for miamibeach urban studios. there's a really cool gallery there, and this is about 18feet long or so. and, what, the thought of this wasto create a piece that would, again, it kind of hosts to the componentwhich is the music instrument. the guitar would have two possiblepositions, either on the left or on the right, extreme leftor extreme right position where they can actually be docked. and, it's exactly thenegative form of the guitar
that receives it, and you see here. there on the left side. and, the musician, scott, picksit up and plays it and docks it in any number of feedbackexperiments can be played while the guitar is in its place or played. and, that is [inaudible]. so, it's probably one of my favoriteimages ever from monad studio with scott playing like this. and, that guitar was actuallydone with a cnc machine.
it's not a 3d printed guitar. it's a milled guitar, and whatyou're seeing here is separate the unit which is the neck which scotttypically fabricates the functional component of the guitar. and we work, you know, inconsultation and collaboration with him to design the bodiesfor guitars at our office. but, this mural hadseveral sonic performances. one of them, i'm going to play alittle bit of how that sounded, is that those curves in thevariation and topographies
of the curves were done notjust an aesthetic device, but also as something functionally that it could be playedwith these transducers. so, through these, thetransducers are none other than speakers withoutthe cone, right? so, the transducers can reach, youcan, you know, measure any frequency of any object, andthrough the transducers, you can get some sortof reading of that. and, in this case,[inaudible] position [inaudible]
through the transducersto the surfaces, and according to how they weregesturing over the surfaces and finding, sometimes, somedeeper cavities on the surfaces. and, this time will be amplifiedin different ways, right? finding the cone ornot finding the cone as they move through the cavities. and you see some more imagesof the guitar, and critically, also these surfaces had scoring ortexture of the cnc milling machine. and, that's really the very texture.
some parts have heavily textured. some parts are much moresmooth, and that's by, you know, by choice how you sendit as an after effect. that's at the end, scott andthe composers play all together. they, what is interesting isto, is that these surfaces which are generated froma kind of architectural, from an architectural sensibilityare there to, now, for us, for the first time for me at least, that connection's notinert, passive surface.
but, rather, this surface is able topartake on the music effect, right? so, there's a direct effect anda direct, say, direct consequence on some of the grooves and some ofthe variation on these gestures. but, what's interesting,too, is if you were painting, you would do gesturesof this size, right? so, it's just kind of a scaler. very interesting scaler relationshipto me between the valley of the scale of the gestures andthe real gestures that take place when they move over it, right?
so, that's a detail that furtherdevelopment of the guitar. new, versions are, then, constantlytrying to perfect it, smoother body, you know, different kind of neck. this is a [inaudible] guitar. scott could tell you much moreabout it, but it's something that he created as an instrumentwhich has this kind of single string that is a different version of it. it's about basically it'sa travel basic or smaller. but, so that's kind of that mural,
and i think this is probably themost iconic of the instruments that we've done thus far. and, probably the reasonthat we're here, ultimately. and this, this is a two stringpiezoelectric violin that we created where this kind ofexaggerated size of it, it is renders that wecreated at the beginning. ultimately, it is muchsmaller, but what we do when we create theseinstruments, i think this is part that i'm really gettingexcited about.
the more we do them, the more wecreate [inaudible] other types of instruments, is that it has alot to do, not only with posture and understanding how musiciansneed to play or how to, how to best suit your habits, different habits of[inaudible] musician. but, also, it does mean, inworking with these instruments, what we're doing is we'recreating another body for it. so, the guitars literallyhave bodies only one of these stringed instrumentshave bodies.
but, what we're doing iskind of a kind of volume which surfaces are there to kindof interface within the body of the human and what's necessaryto perform with it, right? so, for us, i think that's kind ofthe more interesting opportunity for the architectural exploration,and as you can see, i mean, i could tell you that thisis exactly, or not exactly, but it has the same amount ofgeometric information that was to produce a very large performingarts center except it's all concentrated on somethingthat has this dimension.
right? so, that's to methe interesting point, the interesting opportunity,having done this 15 years of those very largeprojects which are way bigger than what you can evenlook at when you try it. and then, all of a sudden, it's allconcentrated on one discrete device, and that's more imagesof the violin. i'm going to just, i think that'sthe right, this is the right image to tell you where wework in florida, right? it's kind of, it's very lushpresence of nature around it.
so, i think that the images speak for themselves in termsof the violin. and, that we've done also aone string piezoelectric cello, [inaudible] cello who which isthere along with the violin. and, i think the other partthat's really interesting is that all this instruments forus have [inaudible] relationship with how they need tointerface with the body, but about the othercomponents that are in it which always is a processof feedback with scott.
we get a lot of back and forthwith him in terms of accommodating for what is necessary in finding,in his case, very creative ways of alternative solutions to beable to fit this [inaudible] to be effective in termsof the performance needs. these are details of the violin. we also created by thetime, we created like five of these instruments at once lastapril for an art show in new york, and we also created for themas another, different version of what was then athree dimensional,
two and a half dimensional mural. this was a fully three-dimensionalspine slash rack of instruments where five of these instrumentswould be again mapped on latching on and in the front, there arethese three stringed instruments, the violin, the treblebass guitar, and the cello. on the back part, therewere two wind instruments, one of which you saw animage of andrew's before. this was built. the pieces, again, is highdensity foam structure done
with a cnc milling machine,and all the instruments, these five instruments, fourof them actually were created. the fifth is in production, areall 3d printed, are all 3d printed with common makerbot, you know, nothing too sophisticatedin terms of printers. and they played, and they, we've been playing themnot only in europe. then we, throughout the summer, wewent to japan, to china, to russia, to prague as well,and washington, right?
so, that's kind of an imageof the mapped-out instrument onto the topology of a surface sothat there's no, there's nothing to hold it other thanthe form itself. sure. and, i just runthrough the last images. that's more on the guitar. so, you get a sense of. and, that's the cello. i think that there's a lotof interest in bringing to these instruments the sensitivity
of those structuresthat we found in nature. and, in terms of that, i thinkthis is the most interesting one because it's the largest one. it's the one where the wholeway in which you're going to hold this instrumentis not trying to map out an existing standard instrument,but it's we call it hornucopian. but, it's actually a very large[inaudible] around the body. and, you saw it before. that's scott playing it.
and, i think that what isinteresting about it is really in terms of scale, it's mappingalmost one to one the size of the roots and the branches ofthe trees that originated them as triggers, image triggers. i think that, the last thingi'll show you is a couple of other projects. this is the fifth that wasnot, it's not yet built. we're still adjusting it. it's getting more andmore interesting.
that's another one, and[inaudible] in production. and, this is beingprinted as we speak which is a six string electricguitar, and it's the last instrument that is in production right now. and, i'm happy now tolet you hear scott. >> anne mclean: thank you so much. that was interestingto see how this evolved out of architectural buildings,rhythmicity, and into an instrument, and it's exciting to see thiskind of a panel of people
who are doing this every day. i really want to thankyou for coming.
3d printing service online quote,i'm sorry about this, butthank you to all our panelists, and thank you for coming. >> this has been a presentationof the library of congress. visit us at loc.gov.
