After my discussion with Tim Gulsrud about acoustics and resonance I became incredibly fascinated with room modes. In every room there is a "resonant" frequency where the sound wave will create a standing waves. The wave will form points of resonance and cancelation throughout the space. A person can walk around and hear how the sound builds and dies. It's a very visceral feeling. I remember experiencing the experiment in my physics of sound class in undergrad. I wanted to experiment with it again. Feel how it felt and explore some potential artistic implications of room modes.

Over at Signal-to-Noise Media Labs, a creative collective of artists and scientist, I worked with Jeff Merkel to find the resonant frequency of the room we were in. The equation is quite simple. The fundamental frequency, (f), is equal to the speed of sound, (v), divided by 2 times the length of your room, (L). This is the same equation to find the fundamental frequency of a closed tube. To find the harmonics you simply multiply the fundamental by increasing integers.

Once we had calculated the fundamental frequency of the room, as well as the corresponding harmonics, we played an individual sine wave at these frequencies through a subwoofer placed near the edge of the room. The feeling of the modes was powerful and created a very visceral feeling. I was eager to explore further what potentials there were for working with the physics of a space and how I could potentially even create a composition based on the relationship of sound to space.