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Claudette drawing in the Roman Gallery

Claudette had no school on Friday and I had taken a day off – which led to an impromptu trip to the Met for a drawing session for the two of us, along with Claudette’s friend Erin. I never get tired of the Met or drawing there.

I have continued working on the Sound Post project. Although I probably won’t try to assemble the structure again until spring, I have been working on the electronics and audio. One of the things that I wanted it to do is generate ambient crowd sounds when the sensors have been inactive for a prolonged time. I like the thought of the sound of a crowd of people suddenly coming out of an empty gallery.

I have started the process of recording ambient noise in train stations and concert halls. The method that I have been using involves wearing a small stereo microphone and moving through the center of a large crowd. The end result of moving through the crowd rather quickly is that I only record snippets of conversations – I am quite pleased with the effect.

It is opening weekend for the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Building at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The opening events featured everything from a stunning inaugural concert to cutting-edge media presentations along with non-stop refreshments at Evelyn’s Cafe.

This has the potential to make RPI one of the premier sites in the world for experimental media.

I took the opportunity to use the opening for my own experimental media project and spent some time recording ambient crowd sounds.