music of architecture

Architecture and Sound are governed by physics and are manifestations of the Pythagorean overtone harmonic series, where the building expresses the optimal acoustic envelope of a fundamental resonant frequency. The length, width and height correspond to proportional intervals. Therefore, every building has a musical key and can be translated into music. 

Music of Architecture takes 3-dimensional form and translates to 4 dimensional (time-based) media. Distance measurements are converted to wavelength frequencies. This is a physics to physics transposition.

Music of Architecture: CERN music composition based on building and translated into sculpture

Project summary:

This project takes two data sets: the first from the physical dimensions of the building that houses the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the second from the results of the particle accelerator, and uses the results to compose music. The musical composition is then transfixed into a sculpture. The proportions of the sculpture and the music are a direct representation of the building and the collision.

The Large Hadron Collider is one of the largest buildings on earth and the project takes the building and treats it like a single musical instrument, like the world's largest tuba. The 27km tunnel can be considered a pipe that produces an acoustic wave frequency which is subsonic. The particle accelerator moves an atom at speeds approaching the speed of light, the colour spectrum makes up visible light.

Using these two data sets, I will compose a piece for chamber ensemble or choir and create a prototype light sculpture from fiber optic cable which is dynamically responsive to the pitch and overtones which demonstrate Pythagorean Harmonic Series.

Both colour and music theory have twelve chromatic intervals measured in hertz. Red is 405THz and currently the modern orchestra tunes to a 440Hz A4 which is an approximate 1:1 ratio. 405THz = 740nm and 440Hz = 78cm, distance and pitch is calculated given the dataset. Colour and pitch are also directly translatable with the data collected by the collision of the atoms and the particles generated.

Building all the data into a sculpture transfixes a time dependent event like the collision (or music) into a string sculpture which describes not only the pitch, but also the Pythagorean overtone and its corresponding colour. It lets the audience experience the event despite not being able to play music or calculate equations for high energy physics.