06 Soundscape Morphologies

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soundscape morphology I&II
Tokyo, Japan

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Installation

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In an increasingly global society, human interaction has quietly diminished, giving way to distance and polarization. Thesis research at Musashino Art University asked whether design could reverse that paradigm, returning connectivity to the physical world.

Research began by comparing advanced precision technology, laser cutting, cnc milling, 3d printing, with analogous methods such as welding, sanding, and cutting by hand. The objects that followed combined digital design with humanistic craft, revealing how automated manufacturing, in increasing use, quietly compels people toward isolation, since productivity no longer requires sustained cooperation. A question emerged from there, how might manually crafted, digitally designed objects reconnect people otherwise built to avoid one another, an answer found less in process than in the qualities of material itself.

That question led to an instrument built from non instrumental materials, steel pipe for reverberation, elastic fabric for vibration, piezoelectric microphones attached to translate touch into sound. A light touch produced one tone, a longer touch another, each interaction registering as a direct intervention in an otherwise automated chain, and returning something instinctive and organic to the exchange.

The object was then scaled into a full scale immersive installation, extending the same logic to multiple users at once. Distant communication was brought into a shared, connecting experience, sound shifting the space's configuration over time as visitors touched, listened, and responded to one another. The installation drew attention across the exhibition, prompting smiles, laughter, and collaborative interaction between strangers who had not spoken before encountering the piece. As a synthesis of space and sound, the work located connection somewhere visual information alone could not reach.

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December 2018