Satoshi Morita has been researching and modelling/producing around the principle of
tactile sound perception (and the merging of the tactile and the audible) for several years now.
The Sonic Suit is one of his body-attached sound sculptures, which enable the experience of listening
while receiving the sound in direct skin contact; and so the distinction between audible and tactile
information becomes blurred.
Satoshi asked Heidrun Schramm and myself to compose a piece for the Sonic Suit - played back
via five transducers. The only precondition was to make use of the ultimately different effects
each transducer would have on the perception.
Of course, a transducer which is placed rather close to the ears will deliver sounds differently
from one directly attached to the lumbar spine. And so, in simple words, we have used certain
vibrating sounds that were good to feel at the lumbar spine, we have used certain close-up water
and crackle sounds which were good to place near the shoulder, and we used rather spatial music
material (derived from string instruments mostly) which can be listened to by the ears, strangely
resembling headphone listening yet a bit different. And due to the compositional structure,
these elements and their different effects on the body / on the perception become intertwined
in certain ways.
In this short stereo recording (>combined edit of two recordings / with OKM microphones),
I tried to capture the Suit's sound from a distance, while others visitors were using it.
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