JBL keeps sound flowing, leaves heritage untouched
Published: ASIA
AUSTRALIA: JBL Control 23 loudspeakers have been used to produce an accompanying soundscape for the Vivid Festival Heaven’s Cloth exhibit. The installation was located in the heritage listed rocks area of Sydney, which led to restrictions on equipment fixings. These constraints led to the installers, Arup MAS, selecting the Control 23 speakers from Jands.
The installation was described as an active and porous ceiling that displayed projected light via LED RGB architectural luminaires to create intricate colour change effects. Enriching the piece was a soundscape composed using synchronised musical intervals.
‘The circle of fifths is like the musical analogy of the colour wheel,’ explained Christopher Sims, Arup’s Acoustic and Theatre Consultant. ‘Just as complementary colours are visually harmonious, the musical interval of a fifth is mathematically and perceptually consonant, and the artwork used these perceptual and aural preferences synchronised to Newton’s asymmetric colour wheel mapping to enhance the visual experience of Heaven’s Cloth.’
Mr Sims specified eight JBL Control 23 speakers and a Crown amplifier to power them.
‘The JBL Control 23 speakers are small and lightweight, plus the built-in InvisiBall mounting hardware supplied with them worked well as it allows you to aim the speakers in a variety of directions,’ explained Mr Sims. ‘In this case, we mounted them up high out of view and in most instances, above the actual cloth, so they could be pointed down onto the people in the laneway. The supplied mounting bracket was designed to be drilled into the wall which we couldn’t do, so we designed another bracket hung off a catenary wire to fix onto the JBL one which worked fine.
‘Without the audio I think the installation would not have been as successful as it was,’ concluded Mr Sims. ‘We got a lot of positive feedback from the public and Vivid, with most people finding it serene, peaceful and an elegant installation.’