Jan 03/Jun 07 LeifBRUSH treeharps networking, windribbon, selfbroadcasting trees, terrestrial whistlers, interactive TRAM, raindropings passaroundsound cellphonynet

view of the North side in image below: windribbon (t); (b) treeharps networking

Conceptually I wanted to simultaneously hear all of the installed Terrain Instruments at any given time and all the images on these pages are but details of the original Permanent Forest Terrain Instrument whole . I was not able to do this in realtime. Reel-to-reel analogue and video recordings were made and the individual instruments were Nagra 4.2 recorded. On this page was the site from which satellite performances originated. Realtime resources, recordings and remotely telephone-controlled Terrain Instruments constituted these 2-way interactivities.

 

 

 

&IMAGE

Leif Bürste 1975ns windribbon (c) WINDRIBBONING & THUNDER BURSTS

Above and below V.1 is shown in two connected but different locales. Hefty turnbuckles hold the pair via a U-shaped steel rod: below image- windribbon is paired with a 9 gauge galvanized steel strand... windribbon is at back back with the 9 gauge strand faceing outward...each monitored wind and torsional tree movements...

 

The wire pair from below... The're anchored to another distant birch tree. For the duration of its sounding life ('75-'86), this tree was referred to a Major Birch. It served as the main anchor for combinations of multiple strand configurations and served also as the anchoring live flagship-soundsource during realtime and interactive Westar satellite (and for teleconstruct spaceworks) projects. The tree succumbed to bronze birch borer disease in 1988 several years after a nearby tree fell and brought down this v.1. The vertical aluminum tube in the 2nd top image was (part of the terrestrial whistler(s) and was physically attached to the 9 gauge strand which parallels the windribbon.. (Producing combind hums and whistles from the same wind gusts).

DETAIl: pair of turnbuckles grasped and held the windribbon taut. Tied down and wrapped outward onto the first inches(this shared the tension at the crutial point) also you can see an additional 9 gauge steel strand which ran parallel.

(detail of a Shadow sensor attached to the WINDRIBBON w/beeswax)

 

Two views of the junction box for the routing of pre-amped sensors from the Windribbon Major Birch location onthrough to an inside mixer/console. f r e q u e n c y c l o c k ... .mov mainly windribbon, with leaf and limd strikes combined with 9 gauge wire, thunder, vocalized humming, whistling, footsteps, leaves, squirrels, birds, other Terrain Instruments: Draft Monitor .mp4 recap 1987 windribboning 68dragged Maple leaf

The fat blue cable shown in both pictures carried the amped and line-level output into a nearby basement soundroom. Sensor inputs are the three RCA females dangling from the bottom (with one still attached). A nearby solar panel supplied the DC for the preamp and amp outs.

An attached FM transmitter (above photo: box is tie-wrapped to tertiary limb) and allowed for nearby FM radios to overhear sound collections from this listeningsource. FM radios on nearby London Road were able to tune into the Major birch.

 

Switch here:to see a sketch of WR V2.4 03-04 proposal to replace the original strands above).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UMD Assistant Professor, sculpture & 3D Studies, 1975

new faculty article

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Each of the trees shown below had the following hardware:

 1-parabolic dish with an installed SHURE 635 mic

  2-SHADOW sensors (beeswaxed on a tertiary limb and a stainless steel probe at the base
   2-dual channel FM transmitters. ((could be heard w/in a 1/2 mia area))
6-DC/FM radio receivers shared these line inputs-via a basement sound room- into a pair of SHURE M67 mono mixers and output was cabled to a 3rd dual FM transmitter located atop the roof chimney.
NOTE: there are quite a few vacant and quiet holes on the FM band in Duluth Minnesota USA)

The Douglas Fir (l) and Birch sounded like regular trees when wind-stirred. In each the trees primary, secondary and tertiary limbs a/or branches and the main trunks were monitored. Trees acted like an antenna because of grounding faults in the pre-amps (hum, accompanied by rf and internal vibrations The fir allowed me to hear German and French broadcasts. Right image: The combination solar panel, pigtail antenna and FM transmitter face southward, Left image: Solar panel, sensor, coupled pre & amplifuers and a plastic inch dia. speaker was aimed at the focal point of this minature parabola. Pointed line-of-sight over the house roof to another tree where a receiving parabola passed the trees amplified vibrations, via shielded audio cable, to the Nagra recorder below.

 

 

a

three views of the same harp showing sandwiched pine sounding boards at the base and a single foot square block at the top; its pairs of multi-gauged galvanized steel strands ran upwards and outwards from both sides of the three blocks and merged as outward-splayed single planes... center photograph by Gary Mortenson; (at r) is the top portion-- absent from the Mortenson image...

strands heading out & up fr/above treeharps sounding-block base

contextual vantages

Signal Disc sound during rain struck by and sliding leaves

signal discs & windribbon (very top r to l) windribbon (very top,l) Signal Disc v3.1

 

 

occupied an adjoining treeharps space

 

terrestrial whistlers: bottom, aluminum; copper tubes hanging at top

steady murners & low wind rumbles, wind turbulence, Aspen tree pair resonating wihtin tubes

 

 

Standing w/earphones near the Whistlers pine sounding block I could hear the douglas fir tree's wind-stirred moans from a different amplified line allthewhile moving-and-touching my stethoscopic-like sensor among six isolated copper and aluminum tubes. I could also easily hear the hardware resonating (whistling) during gusts.

terrestrial WHISTLERS context views

(20 foot aluminum tubes & 4 copper and aluminum tubes hang imediately above; cabling overhead were the preamped mixes of all the Shadow sensors at this TreeHarpsNet location fed to a nearby recording room.) Signal Disc is in center background.

contextdetail

 

These 20 foot-long, two inch aluminum tubes were anchored to a pine sounding block (r), and other smaller tubes of copper and aluminum sort of-paralled the v-angled guying cables (l). A siliconed Shadow sensor attached to the sounding block (r) can be seen midway on this wood block. (200 Shadows were given to me in the mid 80s by the Erlangen, Germany manufacturer and about a dozen have survived into 2001 from problems w/vandals, squirrels and natural disasters.)

LB faceing sounding block of terrestrial Whistlers--- DETAIL of aluminum tube w/rusted metal "pigtail" at the end...2 wood sensors are shown (atop tube), beneath pigtail... both are attached with beeswax (((x-part beeswax, y-part motor oil))

leafdragson9ga_wire.aiff new QT5? ( a maple leaf was impaled and blown the length of a 9 gauge ga. steel strand)

 

 

(Birch anchoring detail) DETAIL: The solar powered Tram drawing, whose onboard solenoids could be FM-remotely-instructed to move in either direction, dampen and strike a wire, and then move to another position, etc.

 

The TRAM meandered among networked galvanized strands which included the Signal Discs

 

RAINDROPPingS (trigger the #, volume, on/off, etc)

 

 

During prolonged, preferrably steady and slow periods of raining, an attempt to manipulate an isolated drop was made from both ends of a single strand by raising or lowering either end (below & r. sketch). Conceptually a corkscrew bolt could electrically be designed to raise or lower a sounding block and the equivalent of a sliding finger on a bow string was to be the affected result.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Leif Brush stands in front of a slide illustrating his proposal for a device to record and FM broadcast the sound of large raindrops. That's a fat, flat raindrop in the middle of his forehead," wrote article-author Sarah Lansdell, who also took this photograph for the Louisville Courier-Journal, February 1982

 

 

A pair of worm gears controlled within wooden blocks could corkscrew up or down as a result of solenoid wratcheting. This action would position a galvanized strand on either end to be lower or higher. The wratcheting was triggered by other sound sources in the Terrain Instrument complex. Sensors were to monitor the raindrops movement on a lowered or raised wire much as a finger traces a bow string to change pitch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A 1976 raindropmonitor prototype consisted of sensed lightning bolt-like copper strips which were freefloating on oak pegs & could be randomly placed beneath trees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

return to windmixed data poetry or continues

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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