Filed under: Leni
Whilst browsing around for inspiration I came across this article on Lebbeus Wood’s blog, about an exhibition in Hangar 17 at JFK Airport commemorating the 9/11 attacks by displaying objects and materials found at the World Trade Center site.
He raises a few brief but interesting questions about the point and use of a memorial, and makes a valuable statement: ‘But the important point here, I believe, is that memorials cannot any longer commemorate death and destruction in the name of noble causes, but must somehow affirm the ultimate value of human life, under whatever name it goes.’
The article and photographs of the exhibition are here.
I am currently working on this model. Right now it really looks ugly, tomorrow i hope that i can spray paint the foam and supports black so it will look better and also will be a stronger contrast with the white powder that will fall on it.
Anyway, the idea has progressed from last week’s tutorial. We had spoken that it is important to have a sort of feedback loop so that the tubes are not just placed on a flat surface and the powder does something as it hits the ground. So I did some research and found a site with really good information on the coverage of forest in Japan. Turns out that between 1990 and 2010 the area in hectares covered by forests in Japan has increased! So between 1990-2000 it decreased 7%, then 2000-2005 increased almost 7% and between 2005-2010 increased 12%, which is a huge achievement for any country these days.
The levels in the model are meant to represent this change. Also, the foam was important to add since this process was not a linear one – one tree is planted today and 5 taken down tomorrow etc so the uneven surface is representative of this situation. The powder itself now starts to have different ‘meanings’ / to represent different things. As it blows out of the tubes (which will be connected to a pump) it shows a three-dimensional interpretation of the sound particles moving as wind passes through the trees. Then, as it hits the ground, the powder sediments in these groves in the landscape and starts to show something different. It becomes a rememberance of this very transient event of sound and they leave a static trace.
Hoping that as I keep working on it it will also get prettier! 
I did a catalog to distinguish the noise spread depending on 3 parameters:
A/B/C – Tree Height (10m/7m/4m)
1/2/3 – Wind Height (10m/7m/4m)
a/b/c- Wind Strength (strong/medium/weak)
These are videos of diagonal winds – weak and strong.
This is a perspective view with 2 parameters – wind strength and tree spacing.
So I did some simulations which represent the spread of sound waves coming from different trees as wind passes through them. I have chosen a random spacing of trees to represent a natural forest format. The two parameters I tested were the strength of the wind and the spacing of the trees. All the circles represent the sound spread, not the wind strength.
- Diagram showing overall sound spread as a gust of wind passes diagonally through trees. Left is strong wind and right is weak wind.
Currently waiting for 3 animations to upload on YouTube, which is taking ages so will post them as soon as they are up!
