Voice of Fire project

Project Page

This project is about a talking fire(note that all the sound in this AVI is coming from the fire, there are no speakers in the room). Kind of a burning bush. Not exactly god, but the voice of the people, echoed back to them through fire. The effect will be to create a feeling of wonder at the effect of voices coming from flames, and amassment at what is being said.

This project, like others I've done in the last few years, will help people to think of their own voice as a powerful thing. It will give them a stage, a public forum, where they can hear themselves and be heard by others.

The process of having this art rearrange sound bites will create wonderful serendipitous sequences of sound. Like flipping channels on the collective consciousness of burningman itself, thoughts both banal and profound will be mixed into a whispering, hissing Voice of Fire.

· The center of the design is a 5 foot tall by 5 foot wide "bush" of copper pipe and wire. (think of a 1/4 scale "one tree", with less of a trunk)

· The bush is mounted on top of a five sided "jewel box" that is 9 feet across.

This will have the fuel, power supplies and supporting electronics mounted inside, making the entire system self contained. There will be extensive safety systems to detect leaks, over-temperature conditions and tampering. All systems will be designed to fail-safe.

· There are 13 small (3 to 6 inch) sound emitting flames on the ends of the pipes.

· The flames will produce sound by passing audio modulated high voltage electricity through the burning gases. It really does work, (see the 7mb video )

· Each sound flame has a different time delay or effect, creating an echo-chorus of sound points.

· It will not be real loud, somewhere around 85 db · Sounds like "T", "P" and "B" will trigger fast acting bursts of extra flame, adding an extra punch to the plosives.

· There is one microphone mounted on a decorated stand. When you speak into it, your voice will directly feed the "bush" of 13 different sound sources. If no one is speaking, it will playback bits of what others have said, along with prerecorded sound bites. This will allow people to walk up and listen to the collection of messages, or add their own voice to the mix.

· The effect of the different sounds from different points will be to enhance the effect of the sound coming from the fires, and to produce a unique experience that changes as you walk around the piece.

· The effect of wind will change the sound by blowing the flames in and out of contact with the electrodes. This will cause the sound to break up and stutter when the wind is blowing. (Auto-ignitors will relight the flames if they are blown out completely).

As with all of the Mad-Scientists installations, the entire project will be pre-fabricated and tested before coming to the playa. No construction will be done on site, so there will be no sawdust, metal chips, screws, or other loose bits to cause cleanup problems. The project will be delivered in large finished sections, connected by large bolts that will be hard to misplace. The current design uses no trenching. All components are self contained and interconnection is done by short-range wireless links. The only impact on the playa will be a few rebar holes to anchor things in place. As in the last three years, we have an earth-guardian-trained supervisor of cleanup both for the art and our camp.

more to come