This was a group project for Kio Zhu's speculative design class. My teammates were Mekayla Gladman (Visual Communication Design) and Maria Bowman (Industrial Design). The end-result was extrapolated from a single 16 minute long mp3 file.
We were playing the roles of future archeologists who had just discovered the mp3 file from long ago in history and had to find the deeper meaning within it.
The final map together with the hologram running.
An overview of the diorama assembly.
A closeup of the laser-cut topography
The video we played through the hologram that includes all of our designed buildings. The first two were designed by Maria, with the rest being mine.
The full mp3 file we were working with (it's the song 'A Rainbow in Curved Air' by Terry Riley)
Concept
Long ago, a city went through a digital crisis where almost all files were corrupted, and only sound files survived. Now in the present day, archeologists attempt to understand the ruins of the city. Using only the sound file, we must piece together the topographical and architectural cues we believe to be hidden in the file in order to recreate small pieces of the city.
Process
When we first started, we were just brainstorming ideas on what we could possibly do with our data. Several different directions came up, our first plan was going to be a fully digital deliverable. It wasn't until we came up with the idea of making a map (which came shockingly quickly after we looked at the spectrogram) that we knew we wanted to develop something physical.
We played with the concept of making a dynamic physical map (Something similar to a pin art board with linear actuators underneath that would make the map move to the audio.) After we realized that it wasn't super feasible to do that on our budget, we decided to make a static topographic map.
I started out by making a 3D map of the song using Touch Designer. I merged two different concepts to create this: Audio spectrum analysis and 3D image extrusion using the color values of the source image. The result was an animated version of the spectrogram that looked like terrain dancing to the mp3. This was used to inspire the final topographic map structure, with the shapes in the physical map reflecting the most common forms throughout the song, as it evolved over time.
The final part of our design came when we discovered that we were able to construct a hologram from just a few materials. Mekayla was able to create this in just a few days, while Maria and I crafted the buildings that would be displayed on it. We were designing these as though we were 'organic filters', listening to the song and then outputting the imagery it put into our heads. The hologram runs off of an iPad with a slanted pane of glass reflecting the image in what looks like midair.
The map was constructed last. We laser cut a series of layers for our map that I made in illustrator again as an 'organic filter', looking at the data we saw initially in the 3D spectrogram extrapolation. I took those common shapes and integrated them into a half-circle map. After it was cut, we assembled everything together with glue, and made a foam pedestal for our hologram to rest on in the middle of the map. The result of all this was the final diorama and its accompanying presentation (See below).
A snippet of our spectrogram data that we ended up pulling ideas from. To us it looked like a series of skyscrapers with mountains behind them. This influenced how we went forward with our overall design.
A series of images we generated with AI using terms we could describe the different sounds in the mp3 with. These we used to influence the design of the map as well as the buildings
Our material and construction research board. "How are we going to actually build this?"
Our Presentation Script
Mekayla: Our presentation takes place years in the future, where the only data we have left to understand the present day is an audio file. We will be acting as digital archeologists, explaining the interpretation of this data.
Alex: Hello and welcome to the opening of our new research exhibition! I’m Alex Horton, and this is Mekayla Gladman and Maria Bowman. We are three of the archeologists who have worked on this exhibition, and are excited to tell you about where this research comes from.
Maria: What you see here on the table is a map of what we believe the ruins of Columbus would have looked like in the past. Several months ago, some of our best digital analysts found some uncorrupted files in the long damaged databases of Columbus Ohio. As you may know, many files in the city were destroyed by the corruption crisis, so this is one of the only relics.
Mekayla: We believe this file was not subject to corruption because it was in an audio form, so knowledge about both the city terrain and buildings were recorded in a way that could survive the issues with digital corruption and loss.
Alex: Transferring information from an audio format is challenging, as we do not have any record of how they may have encoded the file. However, through running the data into a spectrogram program, we were able to study the files layers and come up with a hypothesis for what it represents. We believe that the terrain information may have been hidden in the equalizer levels of the data, while visual and building information was encoded in the timbre of the sound.
Maria: Essentially, for the terrain, we took a visual representation of the equalizer levels and converted it to a 3D surface file. From there, we were able to decipher different levels of elevation to create this physical topographic representation of the data.
Mekayla: In a moment we will show you a hologram of what some buildings of the city might have looked like. We believe this information was shown through cultural signals and references in the timbre of the audio. We ran the audio through organic filters to create these 3D visual models of the buildings, artist representations of what they might have looked like, more than an exact data interpretation.
Alex: In order to better involve you, the public, in the data, we’ve brought it into the physical world. Here you see a section of our map file in a physical topographic map, as well as a hologram showing what different city buildings may have looked like. Let’s take a moment to explore the exhibit.
*Play sound, play hologram, dim lights, give it a few minutes*
Maria: We’re still analyzing this audio data, and are sure that archaeologists will be able to work with this research for many other discoveries! Thank you for coming to the exhibit opening, please enjoy your exhibit experience.
Alex: Now back in the present day, we can talk about how we made this.
Reflection
I had a ton of fun working on this project, it was inspiring to look at other speculative designs and gather ideas that I will definitely hold onto. My team did a great job getting everything complete and I'm happy with were we ended up at the end of such a different process than I'm used to.