Event 1 - Acoustical Visions, Bill Fontana

Bill Fontana's artistic vision

In this presentation, Bill Fontana proposes his vision of art and how it was during certain state of minds, or moments, when he feels musical, that sounds around him also becomes musical (Fontana 1978). As a science student, I initially imagined that being like my ‘Aha! moment’, but as his presentation went on, it changed.

Fort Mason in San Francisco, a presentation
slide from Bill Fontana

One of Fontana’s early project took place in San Francisco, which is also my home! He recorded the sounds of fog horns at Fort Mason, in San Francisco. In this project, Fontana approaches the sounds of the fog horns as a structure that allows sound to bring together the real time between different spaces. During the presentation, I felt conflicted because I was not sure how real time and different spaces could be connected through sound, since sound travelled at a set speed, 343 meters per second, people at different locations would experience the sounds at different times.

Although, people may experience the sounds at different moments relative to universal time, their attention may overlap and be brought towards to fog horn. In the topic of math and music, the concepts of localization and spatialization explains how humans are able to decipher the direction the sound originates from (Burk 2011).

(A video of the shadow of the Millennium bridge with the audio of the water crashing onto buoy)

As a real world application, the notion that events may reach different populations at different time due to the different rules of different societies is exactly how the fog horn is significant to me. To amplify of the sound of the fog horn, it is important to utilize different mediums and adjust external factors, to get the sound to the ears of the listener (Chen 2011). In Fontana’s project, individuals like myself, who resides in the city that is surrounded by fog horns, may not acknowledge, thus fail to hear the fog horn. It may be due to local noises, and other distractions, but if attention from local community recognized the presence of the fog horn, it will not be overlooked. Similarly, in our society, we often deafen ourselves to events occurring in other nations. It is important to keep the arts funded such that it can act as another medium for information to reach our ears.

A snapshot of under the Millennium Bridge by Bill Fontana

 I’d like to finally address my state of mind as not an ‘Aha! moment’ when it comes to the vision of art. Instead I like to believe that it intersects with art and renders me to think of the community I am from. Importantly, I feel most ‘me’ when my actions and ideas relate to issues of social justice and knowing even small changes can make big differences.

Picture of me with legendary Bill Fontana

Sources:

Burk, Phil, et al. “Chapter 5: The Transformation of Sound by Computer.” Music and Computers, 2011, sites.music.columbia.edu/cmc/MusicAndComputers/chapter5/05_03.php.

Chen, Fangyi, et al. "A differentially amplified motion in the ear for near-threshold sound detection." Nature neuroscience 14.6 (2011): 770.

Fontana, Bill. Bill Fontana,Resoundings Essay, 1978, resoundings.org/Pages/Resoundings.html.