Hey everyone,

I'm working on a project with an old friend/professor of mine and we'd love your input on how to handle a set of speakers attached to two chairs playing music. It is an homage to a colleague of my professor who passed away recently. He worked as an art teacher with at-risk kids doing found sound recordings/sound collage, etc. to focus their energy towards positive things, like creating music and reacting to their environments with curiosity and interest.

the two chairs in question, are simple bus seats that look like this:

this is the style of seat used in prison buses to transport convicts. the ring is for the leg shackles. initially, there was going to be a speaker in each ring, but that would a) just blow sound into the back of people's legs b) obscure the rings, which are aesthetically pleasing. speaker recommendations, would be great.

the music for the project, (which I am doing) is going to be a series of 10-20 1 minute pieces on two ipods. Each ipod will be going to one speaker/set of speakers (not sure just yet) and listeners will be able to mix and match the recordings by starting and stopping the pieces at the same/different times.


It's going to be displayed in a couple different public spaces (looks like versionfest08, outside in columbus park and possibly a plaza in denmark), and will need speakers that are versatile, able to withstand the elements and capable of being heard in a busy environment.

I haven't done anything like this before, so any advice you'd have about speaker types/installation/ mounting / organizing wiring/ whatever would be greatly appreciated.




thanks!




Faiz

I've got about 10,000 useful bits of advice to give you, but I still think I'm missing one last crucial fragment.

I give you total props for this project. Its what makes learning and viewing art fun and educational.

The only suggestion i can give is to look into the design of those wacky video game chairs....

If possible incorporate a sub pointed at you ass from under the chair.

johnnyshape wrote:I've got about 10,000 useful bits of advice to give you, but I still think I'm missing one last crucial fragment.

hi, giannishape!

sonicdeath wrote:I give you total props for this project. Its what makes learning and viewing art fun and educational.

Jim, whose ideas this is, was my old art ed. teacher when I was getting my ed. degree. he's phenomenal. I'm really happy to be working with him again.

The only suggestion i can give is to look into the design of those wacky video game chairs...

If possible incorporate a sub pointed at you ass from under the chair.

these are both fantastic suggestions, thanks!



any more thoughts, folks?


Faiz

Maybe you could make some sort of ear piece speaker attachments with one iPod in the left and one in the right. People will be sitting in the chairs, no?

Too obvious, perhaps.

Also, it might be cool to let people control each other's speakers.

the main concerns are two things, to me, and funny enough neither is aesthetic.

number one, functionality. yes, don't put speakers by feet, cause feet got no ears.

number two, structurally sound/ able to take a little abuse. if it's an installed art piece that people are gonna be interacting with, make it strong enough so it doesn't break easily.

those are the two most importants.

then, if you wanna get aesthetic about it... you could put speakers on the back of the chair in front of you, firing back at you from the back of a headrest or something.

personally, I'd love to see you guys rig up something like the head cap from an electric chair, above each seat, with tiny speakers a la computer desktop speakers up inside the bowl of the death cap pointing down at your chair. ominous-like. aesthetically cool. safe from people hitting it. and sonically, focused enough so you won't get lotsa sound bleeding from one chair to the next.

just make sure they're either all tall enough to accommodate tall folks (like 6'5" maybe) or maybe make just the two in the back row that tall, with the front being the shortest.

if people are supposed to be in prisoner mode, they should be alright with rules about which height person sits where.

or, y'know, just shoot them!

Subwoofer in the seat.

I just noticed that it says only two seats. My suggestion with the front row/ back row height thing doesn't make sense if there's only two seats. I think I must've heard wrong when we talked about this, and/or missed that detail when reading the post here.

Yep. So maybe just make em both tall enough for the maybe Danish guys to fit or whatnot. Make it telescoping, adjustable!!!!

Sizzzzzzzzle!

I would mount the speekers back to back below the chair where they are not seen in a tube or box and route the sound up using pipeing "pipe" the sound up to the level that works best using simple air pressure. you could mount the speekers and run the tubeing up like muffler pipes. I would think you could use any type of pcv or thick clear flexable tubeing or even brass or steel if that was pleasing estectily. I am not sure if you would need a spread at the end of the pipe to broadcast the sound. This is would require some work and testing.

There are also some small audio technica speekers for ipod that are flat and could be probibly painted to match the seat seat and could be mounted with glue or velcro.

http://www.momastore.org/museum/moma/Pr ... 0001_43971

Kerble, could you mount the seat on a horse and chaise tone?