Leif
Brush
1964-1969:
analog snowflake identities smile measuring device cortextual
memory resources
soundsculpture;
sense of smell
L:
Gloria DeFilipps Brush excerpt, 1975; R: Hexagram (red near top)
descends black clouds toward an altitude of 5K feet above Baffin
Island
1/16th by 1/4 mile 16 and 22 gauge stainless steel
strands cris-cross and sag over strawberry field in Paw Paw Michigan
US 1968-1969
e.g. ...
Construction/collage/photograph/Haloid
Construction/collage/photograph
--Telecopier
facsimilie imaging
site at OXBOW, Saugatuck, Michigan
Contextual
view from the Oxbow Inn's WIDOW'S LOOKOUT looking west toward
the Buckminster Fuller Geodesic half-Dome. (Up to the 1900s boats could be seen
on the distant lagoon from this vantage.)
Beneath
the dome with Seton Coggeshall, I was discussing my plans to broadcast
reflected sound from a tape recorder. This was to be placed with
its speaker pointed upward some distance above the dirt floor
and near the focal point of parabola. With a second recorder I
taped from nearby and distant positions. The recordings were a
full variety of voice and sounds which spilled and meandered out
from under the edge. Much of the sound became embedded in the
dry dirt below and from the farthest distance only the higher
frequencies could be heard sounding sparsely and intermittently
bird-like and metalic.
NATURAL PLAYING: GRAVEL,
ROADSIDE GRASSES, TREES AND SHRUBS
potential listening
details: car tires and walks upon pulverized dirt and gravel road,
colliding floral boundaries, bushes rustling and whooshing grasses,
monitorable in mid-July as a "realtime playing of the landscape"
for FM radio broadcast
An overcast view of a mile long
gravel road which was our choice to do a brief summer testing
set up for a natural playing site near South Haven Michigan US-
and our target audience was to be reached via conceived Generation
Input REDOT radio stations. Battery operated FM wireless mics
and antennas were positioned on a small tree branches approx 20
feet from the next and/or previous one. Above, Leif walks along
and locked onto the strongest signal from a north side gully.
He receives the sound and directly re-transmited it on a different
channel to Seton (r). We are determining the optimum signal strength
of each between adjacent frequencies. If there was excessive signal
overlap, a transmitter would be moved in either parallel direction.
Ideally the opposite gully would be similarly fit with staggered
and non-interferring frequencies among all those used on the US,
FM band. One prototypical project was to market a car receiver
box having receiving/multiplexingr/demultiplexing accuracy, sufficient
memory and which would allow a driver to hear this event in realtime-
at least if only in "playback" mode- as they drove onwards
return
to your place
Sound inputs were FM transmissions
and
recordings were input a Norelco cassette SITE: South Haven Michigan
US, with assistance from Seton Coggeshall
and Gloria Brush
Detail of mirror and ruler (under PULL & shown in below image) for measuring smile.(Sonderkommando des Spiegels und des Tabellierprogramms
für das Lächelnmessen.)
reverse side of S M D
I've enjoyed bodily sensations
where I sense a smile welling upwards.
As freelance AM radio reporter in Chicago, I remember a potential
50s on-the-fly interview opportunity-that went no where. Waiting
with others beneath an expansive canopied entrance to a near north
side apartment, we became alerted that the expected politicians
approached. Former president Harry Truman and aspiring presidential
candidate Adlai Stevenson (former Illinois Governor) zipped towards
the entrance between newspaper and reporters pencils in hand and
hand held microphones. My transistorized Dictet
recorder being activated, I kept pace, locking onto the eyes of
the former Governor, enthusiastically recounting his testy assertion
at a recent UN meeting in New York directed at Ambassor Zorin:
"...that the U.S.S.R. had placed medium and intermediate-range
missiles and sites in Cuba." Zorin replied with gusto: "You
will have your answer in due course." Stevenson's final words
brought about smiles and laughter in the chamber with: "I
am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over."
(great laughter and chuckles came from the assembled audience).
My words followed: 'That smile remains on your face.' Replying
to me, Stevenson said "print it" and both men closed
the door behind themselves immediately. I came away realizing
that I had witnessed an array of their smile versions as they
hurried across our faces toward their caucus meeting. Adlai was
defeated by former WorldWarII European Allied Commander General
Eisenhower.
Smiles could be lit, a scratch
pad could be used for metric conversions, the fan could be activated
to blow away a steamy mirror, and toilet paper was available for
whatever the fan couldn't erase. The fidget switches and devices
triggered the sounds from a runaway radio dial. Theater lights
ringed the construction. The O housing the mirror was a red letter
O that had fallen from the Chicago Theatre on State Street. I
picked it up while waiting for my westbound CTA bus after leaving
night school.
Concept:That
idea of amplifying body parts remains a challenge, coincides with
being in pro and accompanying internal bodily listening, externally
caused inward vibrations via the ears or skeleton and with all
back-dropped w/ my choice of natural quietness.
1987 AP Photograph from
Science News
Your head
would be held rigid momentarily as three strain gauges (arrows)
are attached to the chin and both lips. Muscle movements produce
analog voltages which are commensurate with any of your facial
movements and the results include a sounding smile and resulant
sonifications. Most people can sense a smile permeating the body
onthrough to its joyous moment when lips separate and your mouth
widens.
return
home
AT&T 
(
sound sculpture construction series)
(Arbeitendes
analoges Telefon DES BÜRSTE KASTEN-Telefons (stichhaltige
Skulptur)
Working
analog telephone used a former wooden paint box.
Adieu painting
In 1967/68 I shared a room in
a low rent apartment of the far west side of the Chicago Loop.
This "workbench/table" was suspended on four small wood
legs above my bed. This soap collection was accumulated over about
a years time from stores in the area as I meandered to and fro
from SAIC via a CTA bus. The room was dry at the time I took this
photo and as such I could not take in deep sniffs as this would
cause me to sneeze. My foray was successful by moving/relocating
among the soaps and inhaling small quick nose sniffs. Some odors
did overlap in short term memory and others became wiped a/or
erased as I later sniffed the same or similar ones. I was anticipating
a chain sensation; however to do this, I had to re-imprint an
odor into my nostrils and proceed after clearing my nostrils.((collage
of items including a favorite: Miller HIGH life in keg-lined cans,
w/et cetera))
less water, more beer!
Sculpture courtyard
south of SAIC building
M
L
detail of recorder above right
M= Marvin Thomas created an endless soundwork-at
my direction-and he agreed to do this performance for $10./hr
Subtitled: garbage ((keg-lined beer cans collected for sale as
scrap w/every can was piled into the container, spilled over,
collected and tossed on top ad infinitum))
Students and faculty
were Marvins audience. L= A brown-painted
plastic curtain "door" seperated me and Marvin who created
a recycled sound convusion from filling, dumping and refilling
the aluminum and tin, keg-lined cans. I randomly matched previously
recorded sounds of the tin cans bouncing on an interior (echo-laden)
concrete floor. Using the reel-to-reel recorder, I could fast
forward and/or rewind to remembered sections on the Wollensak, reel-to-reel 1/4" tape recorder (over
my head).
What follows
are the evolving archives (1964-present) compiled on these pages and on the CD ROM produced and distributed by the
International Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Company, Tokyo. Dec '96 Sept '98 Dec 99 July 2000,
March 2001
archiv pages continue