Analogue Sound Massage -C24

Tom Vincent

During my studies at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, I have always been fascinated by the effect of music and sounds on people’s behavior. In my practice I worked with sounds in different circumstances, my first interest was to emphasize the social impact music has on people. By first writing an essay on how to help each other I then created an installation in a public space meant to share music with each other. This work helped me to study the common ground that music creates in-between individuals, how easy it becomes to get in contact with each other thanks to music and our different appreciation of it. After studying the social impact of music, I decided to understand how we perceive sound and how does it work. In another project exhibited at The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam I created an educational installation where the audience can discover and understand how sounds works. Batteries were emitting a signal to the speaker, then the audience was able to change the oscillation and frequency of the signal, transforming the sound heard and the vibration. A Plexiglas plate was placed on top of the speaker so the public could hear and feel the transformation of the signal guiding them through the discovery of sound mechanism. From these different experiences, I decided to dedicate my graduation project to the unexplored perceptions of sounds and its physicality. After writing a thesis named “Perceptions or reality”, amazed by Paul Bach Y Rita brain plasticity researches, I decided to find, analyze possible connections between art, design and science. Afterword, I felt the urge to design a work that creates alternatives experiences for the viewers to discover. On the other hand, fascinated by sound and how it behaves as a wave, I decided to direct my work on how can we change our appreciation of music by combining different sensory modalities.