Melting Point
Melting Point is a spatial sound installation for hydrophones – underwater microphone-, ice and water by sound designer-artist Antti Mäkelä.
The aim of the installation is to create sound through different states of water and to achieve an autonomic sound creature of which behavior is impossible to precisely predict. The installation consists of eighteen hydrophones, which present and implement the audible basis of the installation. Half of the hydrophones are frozen inside ice blocks which are hang above a pool, where the droplets from the ice blocks drip as the ice melts. The other half of the hydrophones are in the pool, where they pick up sound from below the water surface. The hydrophones inside the ice blocks pick up snaps and cracks as the ice melts and the structure of the ice is expanding due to temperature change. The signals are then fed to a computer where each signal can be modulated. The modulated signals are amplified and played back through speakers in the surrounding space.
“Melting Point” was presented In 2015 as part of the Finnish exhibition “Weather Station. Staging Sound” in The Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space (PQ’15). The Finnish exhibition was awarded with Gold Medal PQ 2015 for Use of Media in Performance Design.
Antti Mäkelä is a freelance sound designer artist and composer living in Kuopio, Finland. He studied and had his Master of Arts degree from the Theatre Academy of Finland including foreign studies in Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. After his graduation in 2006 Mäkelä has made his career as a sound designer artist and composer in the field of theatre, contemporary dance, performance art and installation art. Currently Mäkelä is also working as a Head of Lighting and Sound department in Kuopio City Theatre in Kuopio, Finland.
Aby Cohen 