Borovoye-BioCity
The Theremin (left) originally known as the etherphone
(where ether is a hypothetical substance supposed to occupy all space, postulated to account for the propagation of electro magnetic radiation through space) is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by
the thereminist (performer). The ether phone’s name is about the upper regions of space; the clear sky and the heavens. The founders
read into their discovery the metaphor of the creation of its sound as being
something they could hear and feel vibrate but came from beyond. It is named
after the westernized name of its Russian inventor, Léon
Theremin, who patented the device in 1928. The instrument's controlling
section usually consists of two metal antennas which sense the relative position of
the thereminist's hands and control oscillators for frequency with one hand, and amplitude (volume)
with the other. The electric signals from the Theremin are amplified and sent to a loudspeaker.
The sound of the Theremin was like that of a person wooing except that the
sound could be prolonged and varied in octaves and rhythms. It was the first
non-human, “human” sound controlled by design and electronically. A goal which
was later described by Peter Alexander and other electronic computer composers
whose claim that they have finally been able to eliminate the variable of the
human and make pure music. The driving, insistent sound of the Theremin in
Spellbound links the excitement of the symphonic traditional sound to the
guttural emotion of Rozsa’s composition. Could a human so cry or moan as a
wonderful opera between opera singers and orchestra?
Architecture and Theremin’s Metaphor Aesthetic
By Barie Fez-Barringten
Professor: Global University
Space, its manipulation and
occupation is the commonality between architecture and Theremin. The sound is
produced by the collision and movement of particulates in the air while
architectural space is bounded and subdivided by design. Both reify space. Theremin
is the sound of architecture: the making of metaphors. The aesthetic of the Thermion
and the architecture aesthetic share the metaphor. They both take you to
abstract unseen seeking making of the world of the impossible possible.
It was
used in the movie:”The Day the Earth Stood Still”, was one of the precious few
presentations of the instrument yet it came to symbolize vague references to
the unseen, unknown, and mysterious. For me it represented the future of music,
sound and what man could accomplish. It was new and belonged to MY time. I
could buy enough of 331/3 records featuring the Theremin as Otto Luning and
other experimental works made at Columbia University. The use of the Theremin
and its paltry audience opened the door for other forms of electronic and
experimental music by composers such as John Cage. But no other sound commanded
the heart and mind as the driving big sound of the Theremin. Metaphors talk
about one thing in terms of another, and make the strange familiar. As we hear
the strange sound of the Theremin we seek the familiar emotion/skill of the
theremist, choice of composition or the effect of a crying Whale, haunted
spirit, volume of enclosure, etc. At that time few knew what a Theremin looked
like but knew its sound. One of Rozsa's most famous compositions, based on the
music he wrote for Hitchcock's psychological thriller was "Spellbound"
in 1945. It had themes running threw out signaling fear, worry, terror, etc.
Rozsa juxtaposed traditional symphonic orchestra to go where the Theremin could
not. In so doing the sounds of the Theremin were especially significant of that
which was beyond human.
Architecture is made up of
space, bounded and subdivided by planes. It has shape and form, inside and out
and talks about one thing in terms of another. It makes the strange familiar.
Theremin volume, amplitude, tone and range occupy space and its sound is made
by player moving arms through space and operating hands to make various sounds.
Hands can stop and start, subdividing the sound. It is a technology which is
enhanced by human use as works of architecture. Unlike works of architecture is
not inhabited but does enclose listeners in aura of sound, timber and tone. We
know a Theremin is not a building and a building is not a Theremin yet they are
is a family of technology which when enhanced with other devices as
synthesizers, keyboards, sound effects, Calipees can broaden the experience.
Like a building the Theremin has stature and when playing a known melody,
emotional tone or emphasis is metaphorical. It has something of value. It
changes the ordinary from trivial mundane to images, forms and shapes related
to themes of social value.
When constructed, planes, volumes,
space and scale have peculiar relationships. Planes limit and bound space. Were
a plane habitable it would be a space and were space limiting it would a plane.
By their juxtaposition they manifest characteristics they both have in common
and some that are different. Each maintains its own property of plane and space
just as Richard maintains his humanity and the lion its nature. Each points to
a property beyond its own inherent characteristics. They are both the
properties that make a volume; a volume in any scale or proportion.
The property that is common to all
the planes is the space or sub-spaces which the planes themselves delimit. The
planes define, float and/or define space. The space is the reality all planes
have in common. The volume of the spaces varies by the way the planes are
arranged. Planes that limit and planes within the space modulate and form
relationships. Similarly, the facades or colonnades that surround a square,
plaza or atrium define the void and make it what it is – ergo, part of the whole.
These relationships oppose one another in tension and compression and can be at
any scale. They may be symmetrical, or asymmetrical, they may unify or
separate.
Scale is the proportion of the
planes, space and volume of one sub-space to the whole construction. The
planes, spaces, sub-space(s), volume and scale have commonalities and
differences between them. They all point to a reality beyond their individual
and common nature to their external context and potential occupant(s);
occupants whose culture and behavior may vary. The relationship between
occupants and context is explored in the properties afforded by scale, volume
and plane. The scale and elements of St. Peters, Rome, drafts its structure and
decorative elements to a scale beyond any single inhabitant and always suggests
accommodating much larger sized inhabitants or crowds. Scale, volume and size
are the commonplace demanding references to something beyond any single space
or detail. Like its illustrations and characterizations, it is about the
universe and the vastness of creation. Scale is the commonality between the
proportion of elements within a construction as well as the construction and
occupants, particularly an area, room, corridor entry and an occupant. The
proportion of one structure to another in an urban setting, or a construction
to its surroundings (trees, plains, desert etc.), involves a transfer and
carry-over from one side of proportion to the other (people vs. columns,
spaces, vistas, scale etc.). When the two achieve equipoise they seem to be
right; when one is too large or too small, the scale is off-kilter. In either
case it is a metaphor whether aesthetic or not. Theremin sounds are bigger than
the sounds of juxtaposed traditional instruments and therefore set themselves
apart. The scale of the two is heightens the experience of the space between
human and Theremin sound. Normally traditional musical instruments are the
sounds of human beings blowing, strumming, banging to make a sound whereas the Theremin
is none of the above. Its source is electric reactions to the movements of
hands in space and the way they affect the oscillators and are then magnified
and transmitted to audio.
Two metal antennas protrude above
a box that contains electronic oscillators. The performing musician, sometimes
referred to as a thereminist, controls the instrument without touching it by
varying the distance between his hands and the two antennas and by subtle
movements of his palms or fingers. Sound frequency is controlled with one hand
and volume with the other by moving the hands closer or farther away from the
antennas. Hands or fingers are waved to create a vibrato effect.
Circuits in the box that are
attached to the two antennas sense the positions and other movements of the
hands and cause the radio frequency oscillators inside the box to vary their
electric current output in a way that responds to and reflects these movements.
The electric signals produced by these oscillators are amplified and sent to a
loudspeaker.
Theremin was musically
inclined and played the cello when, as a 21 year old student at the
Physico-Technical Institute in Petrograd in the 1920s, he was assigned the task
of developing a vacuum tube alarm device that would work on the principle of
human proximity.
While
working in his lab, Theremin accidentally noticed that the presence of his body
could detune a radio receiver; this accident gave him the idea to develop a
variable pitch alarm, which he called the Ether Phone. The Ether Phone led
to the theremin.
The context of any metaphoric
architectural construction, likewise, is the commonality between the volume and
its common scale. The proportion and characteristics of volume and context are
always interlinked. They can be limitless or limited. Transformation of the
volume of the construction and its sub-volumes to the context is a scale of the
metaphor to inhabitants of both contexts. Just as in the example of Richard the
Lionhearted - the construction and the context each point to a nature
beyond their respective metaphors - and are a bridge by which their respective
values are defined. Were the context a construction it would be this volume and
were the construction the context, it would be the same volume. Like Richard
and the lion’s bravery, the magnitude of the volume is beyond context and
construction - and reaches to values intrinsic to both. These values operate
independently of anyone who perceives or recites the metaphor but nevertheless
these properties are implicit in the distinct nature and sovereignty of what is
constructed.
The planes that define the
construction may differ from one another as each must be the commonality or
difference between its adjacent space, sub-space and context. It may also be
affected by the inhabitant’s use of volume and space and itself be the
characteristic common to both. As such, its faces may be differently colored,
constructed or supported thus forming a bridge for its referents (inhabitants
and volumes). As this element becomes a sub-metaphor, so it is with each other
plane, volume, space and sub-space. Each links to an adjacent or related
element and in so doing makes a metaphor. It’s like the do-se-do movement
in square dancing in which two dancers approach each other and circle back to
back, then return to their original positions where one partner is exchanged
for another. There is a domino effect among the circle of dancers and likewise
in construction, where each element bridges and affects the other.
The commonplace of planes in space
is their tensional asymmetrical or symmetrical relationships which give them
equipoise, equipoise that could fix them in space were it not for gravity or
the laws of physics. Hence they need some structure in the form of tensional
wires, or skeletal gravity supports such as columns, beams and slabs. Yet
equipoise is the commonplace beyond their own sizes, weights and composition,
which composes their form and allows them to transfer their properties. It’s
the same with the Theremin where its highs and lows counter one another.
Architecturally, they form positive
and negative spaces; positive being within any given relationship and negative
being without, where there would not be a negative without a positive. The two,
positive and negative, transfer there commonality of space and volume between
one another. For a literary metaphor it is grammar, syntax and language that
are its commonplace. It is the same for a sovereign metaphor – it transfers its
original properties from one level to the next to achieve equipoise.
Just as there are agglomerations of words, phrases and
sentences, so there are architectural compositions comprised of planes, lines,
volumes and spaces which are not metaphors. However chaos, dissonance and
vacuity are also ‘qualities’ associated with language. Line and volumes
transfer their opposition to one another in tension and through this tension
balance not by symmetry but instead by asymmetrical yin opposition to
one another.
The commonplace of the lines is their
opposition and tension in space. For example, the two rooms of the log cabin are
joined by the fireplace; the common fireplace which removes the smoke and fumes
of the fire common to both rooms. The rooms which are formed by logs are common
to both the interior construction and the external context – a context filled
with trees and nature. The planes of logs forming the wall divide the interior
warmth from the attack of wind, temperature, snow and rain. The upper diagonal
planes form the roof and keep out the elements as well as retain the heat
generated by the fireplace. Metaphorically it is easy to see how the single
double flue model could be adapted to accommodate a second floor using the
common fireplace. This model gave way to the lower floor kitchen/living rooms
and upper bedrooms. In the US example, a "log cabin" was usually
constructed with round rather than hewn or hand-worked logs and often it was a first generation
structure which could be erected quickly as frontier settlement required.
A corridor enclosed by walls
implies adjacent rooms, a beginning and end to the corridor - and in the case
of a multi story building - connecting stairs and elevators serve as
ambulatories (transfers and connections). The space limited by horizontal and
vertical planes in the context of a school carries over into adjacent spaces.
Bound and limited spaces characterized by a matrix of connected spaces of
varying or equal volumes collectively form a beehive-like metaphor or
interrelated and connected “cells”. Multiple horizontal planes forming building
floors when stacked become a “high-rise” whereas adjacent vertical planes
separated by volumes can become a shopping center. The program for buildings with
multiple areas such as hotels, schools, shopping centers, offices, apartments
and prisons, is basically conditioned by a core of vertical and horizontal
transportation, utility links and service areas supporting apartments, guest
rooms, class rooms, shops, cells etc. Owner -occupied, specialty buildings
differ uniquely in their uses, functions, occupants, adjacencies, pedestrian
and vehicular access and each begets a singular and paired transfer as regards
the condition of structure, utility and support systems. The ideals of such a
structure will influence the scale of the operation and the segregation of
differing types and classes of operations from administration, executive,
staff, patients, guests, workers, etc. This is not so with the Theremin. It is
a fine and not an applied art.
Yet, the ideal is the characteristic
of bravery in the Richard the Lionhearted metaphor and is the value people
bring to the creation of the structure which determines its scale, selection of
materials, structural, mechanical and electrical systems, etc. It is easy to
see how operations would transfer to structure influencing its volume shape and
form permuted by an ideal toward some overall goal; goal being typified by the
ultimate function of the structure (residence, hospital, office, factory,
school, etc.).
Just as the hanging of furs and
skins on cut branches transferred to the log cabin, so the European models of
the country house, the hacienda and the vernacular transferred to the frontier
shack, workshop, cabin or colonial mansion. Similarly, the same process applies
in the case of the factory and the office. This development saw the visual
extrapolation from a one-story structure to a multi-story version complete
with elevators, plumbing and air-conditioning shafts and stacks. The
replication of floors is not a metaphor but it is analogous of the
lift-inspired move to develop higher and higher structures.
The lift became the medium for the
skyscraper because without it few buildings if any would have risen much above 100’
and our cities wouldn't have developed in the way that they have. This development might be considered as a
classic case of the tail (the utilities) wagging the dog (the building). These
structures – may differ in volume, space and scale but they reflect a broad
array of goals, which transfer from one to the other. Conditioned by zoning,
city ordinances and statutes, they form a complex matrix of metaphors able to
make their commonalities and differences in the context of areas, sub-area, nodes
(known as cities), neighborhoods and blocks. The theremin raises the sound of
music out of the human to pure electric sound. Yet vibrato is as the quivering hands
of the theremist.
Some of the more famous Theremin works follow:
Rachmaninoff: Theremin "How Fair
This Spot" by Peter Pringle;
Giant Theremin by
Martin Kennedy;
Glass Harmonica by John Tamaro;
Beowulf: Hurdy-Gurdy
& Theremin (male voice singing with sounds;
Pitch Bending Thumb Piano-
Jamoflage percussion;
Two people playing "House of
the Rising Sun" on the hydraulophone
(Water pipe organ flute which is the
fountain outside the Ontario Science Center); Lydia Kavina, Theremin
The Radio Science Orchestra
The Radio Science Orchestra
Theme from film Doctor Who, composer
Ron Grainer
Live Recording from TED Global Conference
Oxford 2009; Satenik Hakobyan-Ulikhanyan - theremin
Martin Ulikhanyan - composer
"Space Vocalize" for theremin and orchestra
.Armenian State Chamber Orchestra
Conductor, Zaven Vardanyan Yerevan, Armenia 16.03.2013;
Live Recording from TED Global Conference
Oxford 2009; Satenik Hakobyan-Ulikhanyan - theremin
Martin Ulikhanyan - composer
"Space Vocalize" for theremin and orchestra
.Armenian State Chamber Orchestra
Conductor, Zaven Vardanyan Yerevan, Armenia 16.03.2013;
Bob
Moog, pioneering the synthesizer,
Theremin
is a metaphor of the spiritual world created by God. It is an enigma faced to
man explained in a verse in John 3:8:”The wind blows
wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes
from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”.” And Acts: 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a
violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were
sitting.3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire
that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy
Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them.
The below are shown Theriministic metaphoric futurists works of architecture.
Fungia-skyscraper: Skyscraper is possible to grow continuously through
vertical construction of units which consists pair of joints and horizontal
expansion of plates. Each boundary plate between the pair of joints which is
located in the middle of each unit works as public garden, maximizing the whole
shape line of the building itself.
They are able to form a city in air by forming links with neighbor plates
continuously. Skyscraper which is located between the boundary plates expands
to most appropriate scale according to the population of users. Each and every
user of this building is allowed to own ground with in a 100m in radius. We can
think of skyscraper as a column as well as boundary plate as a slab. They
construct a gigantic city in air, generating integration of function and maximization
of working efficiency.
Anti-Conditionalism
Lego
The theremin was to movie makers, architects and
artist of the turn of the twentieth century as was BIM (Building Information Modeling is a process involving the generation and management
of digital representations of physical and functional characteristics of places); computer virtual design and graphics are to the twenty first. The Emirates
Shanghai, Singapore and Hong Kong now have architectural towers which turn and
emulate the “futuristic’ imaginations of the early twentieth century. As metaphors
they validate those cultures with a world that is set apart from the mundane of
this world. As the Theremin’s electric rectification into sound so the utterly
bombastic design’s of Avanti
Architects, ARUP, Shiguru Ban, Zaha Hadid, Norman Foster, Ram Koolhass, Renzo
Piano, Aldo Rosi, Frank Gehry, Kenzo Tange, Richard Meier, and James Sterling
Skyscraper with Rotating Floors Architect: David Fisher.The Da Vinci Tower (also known as Dynamic Architecture Building) is a proposed 313 m (1,027 ft), 68-floor tower in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The tower is expected to be architecturally innovative. Uniquely, each floor will be able to rotate independently. This will result in a constantly changing shape for the tower. Each floor will rotate a maximum of one full rotation in 90 minutes.
The
entire tower will be powered by wind turbines and solar panels that will also provide electricity to five other buildings in the vicinity. The turbines will be
located between each of the rotating floors and could generate up to 1,200,000 kilowatt-hours of energy.
It will also be the world's
first prefabricated skyscraper. 90% of the tower will be built in a
factory and shipped to the construction site. This will allow the entire
building to be built in only 18 months. The only part of the tower that
will be built at the construction site will be the core. Part of this
prefabrication will be the decrease in cost and number of workers. The
total cost will be 23% less than a normal skyscraper of the same size, while
only 90 people will work on the construction site. The majority of the
workers will be in factories, where it will be much safer.
 |
| Wings over the world:"Things to come" |
Shown above is: Gavin Rothery- Concept-VFX-Blog- Jacques Fresco Architectural Models
Theremin architecture by Gavin
Rothery what he calls "concept art". This is one of many of his works
which are inspired by the very thought of the future where the Theremin’s
sound, idea is not natural, not of human making but mechanical; It is the sound
of electric, sound of energy harnessed. Energy harnessed and adapted where we
make this strange (very strange) familiar by playing classic and religions
songs. The images come alive with the sounds of "waterphone,synthesizer,therimin the images come alive
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“The shape of things to come” ( The 1936 movie.was based on the book by H.G.Wells)
H.G.Wells postulates that science will someday be the only alternative to one world government to stamp out war, end famine and political struggles. Posing nature against science, what the Greeks and Romans posed as order over chaos of nature. Such a solution would give time to cure all disease, perfect health , and the pursuit of happiness. Startrek's Gene Roddenberry continued the thought of a universal order policing the universe and "going where no man has ever gone before" To Roddenberry and Wells "Space was the final frontier"; even "Things to come" ends by them sending their two children into space as they were being confronted by a rebellious society (as the Israelite s in the time of Moses) .
Vast open spaces, power
generators going for hundreds of stories beneath the earth, a world ruled by
scientist because politicians blew-it, video
image broadcasts in a variety of shapes and forms, holograms of figures,
long span beams, undulating forms made of super strong materials, sky walks
predating the ones much later built by Federated in Cincinnati, The theremin
and architecture were make-over’s of traditional human and conventional know
laws of science, strength and properties of materials and sound making instruments.
Both went above and beyond the known and feasible to the realms of potential.
You only need to see the spans, thickness and textures of materials to see
these are not possible with today’s technology, to hear the sounds of the Theremin
you know no known natural being could make such sounds.
Vladimir Lenin loved the Theremin when shown it in 1922
(and wasn't at all bad at it according to Theremin): Communism, he said, was
Socialism plus Electrification. He took lessons, and sent the young inventor
around the world to promote it. Theremin was living in Manhattan with his
dancer wife when—in a turn of events that might have been accompanied, in a
film version, by a Theremin portamento —he was allegedly abducted by the KGB and
returned to the Soviet Union, where he was imprisoned for seven years. He then
took a job with the KGB cleaning up recordings that were hard to decipher, and
invented the soviet bug, whose importance Stalin so appreciated that he
personally assured that Theremin was given the first level Stalin Award, the
most prestigious prize in the country at that time. The inventor then spent ten
years at the Moscow Conservatory of Music, teaching and making Theremins,
electronic cellos and terpsitones (a variation of the Theremin whereby sound is
created by dancing on a metal plate). But after he spoke to a New York
Times journalist, he was fired and his instruments axed to pieces.
Meanwhile in the West, the Theremin was launching
electronic music via Moog. The Beach Boys used it in Good Vibrations. Jimmy
Page played it in Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love, and it featured in music by
Simon and Garfunkel, Supergrass, Marilyn Manson, and Goldfrapp. But the main
significance of the instrument came with its adoption by makers of horror and
science fiction movies between the 1940's and 1960's. Lending itself well to
rapidly shifting keys, vibrato, and gliding shifts of pitch, it was the perfect
expression of sudden loss of control or consciousness, of the intrusion of the
alien into everyday life, and of impending narrative shifts into the
inexplicable. Its position as a signifier of the uncanny was cemented by such
films as Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945)
and The Day
the Earth Stood Still (1951).
It strikes up during a Simpsons episode as Homer is about to go to the attic to
investigate the presence of ghosts: In a brilliant piece of literalism, he
complains: “its one thing for ghosts to terrorize my children, but quite
another for them to play my Theremin!”
Brian Roettinger has adapted the theremin from a musical
instrument into an instrument of non-musical notation. Any musical
instrument could be used to represent letters of the alphabet; (one could
imagine a Morse code-like adaptation of say, the piano, to represent words, and
how that might sound). This, however, is not a code whereby a short note
followed by two long ones denotes, say, a “D”. Instead, he has devised a system
based directly on letterforms and their anatomy, and the way they sound when
drawn in the air next to the Theremin. Reversing (and perverting) the order of
things whereby the spoken word came first, to be followed by the written word,
here the written word is, as it were, given a voice—returning to the Theremin
the “vox” that was once removed, and making of it electronic vocal chords, with
the hands acting as the mouth. It is an adaptation both rational in its
conflation of the visual with the aural, and absurd given the existence of
speech as an effective system of communication. (a vox is
Like any language, Theremin would evolve. First would come
a moment similar to the point at which a child starts to inflect and modulate
read-out-loud sentences, rather than enunciating each word as a separate
entity. What started as a rational code would become, through use, emotive,
expressive. The musical instrument, first deprived of musicality, could then
take on the musicality of language.
It is of course highly unlikely, given our faculty for speech
that theremin languages will catch on. The idea will remain an idea, but by
giving the Theremin a useless purpose, Brian Roettinger has followed John
Cage’s recommendation, quoted in McLuhan’s The Medium is the Massage (message) , that “the highest purpose
is to have no purpose at all.”
Leon Theremin
The inside of a Theremin
Angels and demons alike can and
like to play instruments like the Theremin, It’s an apotheosis revested by an
ethereal sound, able to invade the body and break the soul into small pieces.
It's magic. It's a musical instrument that can't be touched. Better: it's
touched with no touch. The Theremin player, or the theremist, looks like a maestro with no baton, a
commander of an invisible orchestra, inebriating the listener with ether.
Theremin sounds like the wind coming inside through the window, like the
hypnotic chant of a mermaid, like the invisible presence of a phantom. Both the human body and the therimin are instruments affected by unseen force between theremist and perhaps angels, demons and the spirit. As we play the theremin so we may be played. From time to time we all realize that someone or some thing out side of ourselves is affecting our thinking and behavior. The nature of the theremin is spiritual which explains its affect on its use and application in futuristic architecture, movies and plays. Today so many electronics are controlled remotely through unseen space yet it is still the theremin which is unique in that human dexterity of hand and body motions, strength, tension vibrations, flexure, and motion that can vary the tones, volumes, pitch,etc of the theremin's sounds. The aesthetic of the theremin in perceiving and making metaphors of sound and of making works of architecture is well illustrated in the futuristic therimin architecture shown above. There is an affect!
Probably owner of an uncommon sensibility, Mr. Theremin was surrounded by the almost surreal sonorous beauty which came from such an annoying interference. In front of him, there were two oscillating metal antennas of high frequency where the electrical stream passed through. When his hand got closer of one of the antennas, modifying its frequency, this mysterious and endless beautiful sound came up crossing him, like a shiver through the spine, as a soft and pleasant flow. However, he perceived that, with one hand, he could control the frequency; with the other, the amplitude or the volume. So, he decided to amplify these brand new sounds and turn on the instrument to a column. Then, the delight came -- the sonorous orgasm.
Probably owner of an uncommon sensibility, Mr. Theremin was surrounded by the almost surreal sonorous beauty which came from such an annoying interference. In front of him, there were two oscillating metal antennas of high frequency where the electrical stream passed through. When his hand got closer of one of the antennas, modifying its frequency, this mysterious and endless beautiful sound came up crossing him, like a shiver through the spine, as a soft and pleasant flow. However, he perceived that, with one hand, he could control the frequency; with the other, the amplitude or the volume. So, he decided to amplify these brand new sounds and turn on the instrument to a column. Then, the delight came -- the sonorous orgasm.
In the middle of Russian Civil War, the inventor Léon Theremin was leading an investigation supported by the Russian governs about proximity sensors. It was basically a study about the interference of the hands at the radiophone transmissions which modified the frequencies and irritatingly damaged the communications.
At the beginning, Theremin was
conceived to play classical music and even to substitute entire orchestras with
its "ethereal music". (It is extremely delicate and light in a way that seems too perfect
for this world) Such a
thing didn't happened and fell into oblivion after the Second World War, when
the bombs were shut up and a new wave of electronic instruments came along.
Where was Theremin during all that time? A little niche of affectionate people
was using the instrument on their compositions along the years, and even resurgence
happened during the 1960s and the 1970s with bands like, for example, Led
Zeppelin. In 1993, when the documentary directed by Steven M. Martin, Theremin:
an Electronic Odyssey, was released, allied with the revival characteristic of the
contemporary music, the ethereal frequencies of Theremin started to be used
often. At this documentary, we can watch several interviews with legendary
figures of the musical industry and, peculiarly, an interview with Léon Theremin.
Coincidentally at the same time as the Theremin, electronic
music was invented so was the Bauhaus reinvented design; interrelated all arts
and crafts with common vocabulary of dominance, sub-dominance and subordinate
points and counter-points. A new
aesthetic was born; science, engineering, electronics and the digital, age was
born.
Plexiglas sculpture by Christina Fez-Barringten make in 1964 in NYC.
Post the therimin the following below are just some of the characters and sources of the sound effects of many science fiction films. The electronic sound field has grown exponentially.
About the
“Architecture: The Making of
Metaphors” is his latest book which
can be ordered at Amazon.com and/or Cambridge
Scholars Publishing Ltd ,England. And
most national book stores such as Barnes and Noble.
Currently Barie is
researching, writing and speaking on architecture, urbanism and Saudi Arabia
including monographs on
architecture: the making of metaphors; and, recently published two books: Gibe
and Legend which may be purchased on Amazon.com. Barie is often invited to present his
inspiring life’s story to students in colleges and universities.
In 2008, he was Design Manager for Barwa City
in Qatar and twenty years as an
architect, business manager and project manager; and in Saudi Arabia including teaching for five years
at KFU. While as professor at King Faisal University he wrote over twenty
monographs on metaphors and architecture, which were widely published in
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, England, America, Finland and Lebanon. All his
writings were based on his lecture series he presented 1968 at Yale University
called “Architecture: the making of metaphors” which was then published in part by “Main Currents in Modern Thought”, and
various research into the works of Paul Weiss, Andrew Ortony, David Zarefsky and
W.J.J. Gordon; and most recently others were published
by the MIT Press, the Journal of Enterprise Architecture by the
University of Syracuse; Cardiff University, Brunnel University, Reconstruction,
University of Alaska Fairbanks; University at Brighton; and published by Springer of London and New York.
Earlier in Houston, Texas where he was
Director of Special Projects for the Gulf Oil Corporation he wrote the policies
and procedures for all of Gulf Oil’s non-oil design and construction activities
which was then published by John Wiley and sons in a book called Project
Manual Standards(PMS). In Saudi
Arabia he founded a chapter of the American Institute of Architects,. He is a
Registered Architect in the State of Florida and certified by the National
Council of Architectural Registration Boards.
Born and raised in New York City, Barie has
completed his memoir of the first 21 years of his life called “Bronx
Stardust” which includes his early years as a radio broadcaster at Pratt
Institute Radio Station, which he founded while studying design. To support
his studies at Yale University he worked as an announcer at WLAE-FM in Hartford
and owned his own design business in New Haven. He earned his Masters of
Architecture degree at Yale University and is now a trustee of the Yale Alumni
association of Southwest Florida formerly helping new aspiring students to
apply for education of that prestigious university.
His
monographs include: Schools
and metaphors"; User's metametaphoric phenomena of
architecture and Music";
Metametaphors and Mondrian; The metametaphor theorem"; Multi-dimensional metaphoric
thinking"; "Metaphors and Architecture."; Teaching the techniques of making architectural
metaphors in the twenty-first century.”; “Urban Passion”:;Metaphor as
an inference from sign”; "A partial
metaphoric vocabulary of Arabia";"The Aesthetics of the Arab
architectural metaphor";“Framing the art vs. architecture argument; An architectural history of
metaphors”: and The sovereign built metaphor”.
Recently
he received The Florida AIA’s Presidential Honor Award “for volunteerism over
multiple years to inform, guide or contribute to board’s mission “and his
lecture is available at this link: http://globaluniversity.academia.edu/BarieFezBarringten/Books/1449761/Architecture_The_Making_Of_Metaphors
For more about his various monographs, careers, art work, building
designs, and city plans please visit many links by his name on the www and his
website location www.bariefez-barringten.com
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