The Audilisk is a sound-art installation being designed and created by Rob Baseel and Erik Poulson for the Burning Man festival. The Audilisk will be located in the middle of the desert, emitting strange sounds and signals from another place and time.
The physical form of The Audlisk weill be that of an obelisk roughly 10 feet tall, 3 feet wide at the base. The obelisk body will be made of painted (slate grey ) plywood, framed in angle iron. The top of the structure, where The Audilisk tapers to a point, will be made of transluscent red plexi, overlayed with laser-cut metal and framed in angle iron.,This upper portion of The Audilisk will contain a bright compact flourescent bulb placed within the plexi structure, illuminating the top of The Audilisk with a red glow. The base of The Audilisk will be encircled by rows of red ultra-bright LEDs, which will fade in and out slowly.For audio playback, The Audilisk will contain a set of stereo speakers, facing out from opposite sides of the structure. Audio will be provided via MP3 files burned to CDRs, then played through a standard home CD changer and receiver. Experimental audio will be played simulating transmissions to and from an unknown source. This audio is currently being created, specifically for this installation, by myself and the other members of the infinite sector collective – as well as members of the Burning Man community. The sound pieces that will be used will be highly experimental in nature, and will challenge the listener on a number of levels, while not being overly harsh or aggressive. The idea is to simulate a transmission from an unknown place and time.
The Audilisk will be surrounded by four ceramic forms, created and designed by Erik Poulson. The nature of these pieces can be, of course, best described by the artist himself :”One of the first thoughts that pop into my head when I ponder the existence of the Audilisk is ‘Where the #@&* did it come from?
I imagine some sort of bizarre creature or bio-mechanical alien tool piercing it’s jaws up through the player surface and tearing a hole from which the Audilisk appears…It is these jaws/teeth which I intend to create.How does one go about creating such objects? With clay of course! These four elements (one for each corner of the Audilisk) will be three sided ‘tusk-like’ shapes, with all sides concave, starting with a wide base and curving upward toward a point. The two exterior sides will be covered with a heavy texture and left as raw clay. The clay used will be a course stoneware body of a granite like color. Forming will be done with the ancient coil/paddle method. The interior side will be covered with pure white, porcelain panels pieced together by a stucco service in Chandler. Six panels in all, each will decrease in size as they near the tip.
Each panel will be tapered to a point of it’s own to highlight the inherent movement of the piece. Hidden under the 2nd, 4th, and 6th (last/top) panels will be a series of red LED lights (keeping with Rob’s red color scheme) creating a red glow underneath the panel. With the nature of porcelain clay being so pure, and it’s crystalline matrix so dense, translucency can be obtained with a relatively minimal thickness. LED light being single wavelength, pure in and of itself (with red being a highly penetrating color), should cause the white panels to glow red.” – erik poulson
Contribute your voice to The Audilisk ! Call toll-free in the U.S. to leave a voice mail message, which will be added to an ever growing pool of sound bites which will be used to formulate an extended experimental sound composition which will be played nightly through The Audilisk 1-888-616-3386. Outside of the U.S. ? You can e-mail your messages in MP3 or WAV format to : info@infinitesector.org
