Green Diary highlights artist Luke Jerram’s new project “Aeolus,” which seeks to capture the sound of wind passing through a landscape. According to Green Diary, Jerram received an £225K grant from the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPRSC) to create and tour Aeolus, an exploration of acoustics, wind, and architecture, which was inspired by a tour of desert wells in Iran that one local well-digger said sung in the wind. The artist has created a range of sculptures, installations, and live art projects, including the Plant Orchestra.
Aeolian wind harps were seen by Jerram as the best tools for capturing the sound of wind. “Long tensioned strings will resonate with the wind and will be heard by visitors inside the space. The ambition is to sonify the three dimensional landscape of wind. The public will be able to visualise this shifting wind map from within the space by interpreting the sound around them.”
The piece will consist of components that explore light, including “hundreds of light pipes which both draw the landscape of light into the building and hum at a series of low frequencies. The tubes act to frame and magnify the landscape so that from inside the structure, at its centre, visitors can see through one hundred of these pipes simultaneously, contemplating an ever changing landscape of light.”
The installation features a specially designed architectural space that will resonate and sing with the wind. EPRSC and the engineering groups of University of Southampton (ISVR) and University of Salford are involved and funding the project because they hope to learn more about how to make audible wind noises without electrical power or amplification.
The temporary installation will tour sites in the UK and elsewhere, and each location’s unique wind and landscape sound will be recorded.
Image credit: Luke Jerram
