Sound mirrors in Liverpool Anglican cathedral

Sounding Out Liverpool
Artist: Matthew Sansom
Location: St James’ Mount, Anglican Cathedral

Giant ‘sound mirrors’ tempt viewers to listen to the city through the artwork, which amplifies the continual flowing soundscape of the city and its inhabitants.

This artwork invites you to entertain and play, bounce your own stories, jokes or poems off the sound mirror, or recite extracts from the films, books and entertainers of Liverpool, whose words are etched on the surrounding ground.

It is open 14th-18th February 2011 (11.00-3.00pm) and 21st–25th February 2011 (11.00-3.00pm).

Sound mirrors and the soniferous aether

Hide and Seek Gallery “recently hung out with Quinn Gomez-Heitzeberg at the group show titled “Air” at the Corridor 2122 Gallery“, in Fresno, California. This show includes “Proposal for a Municipal Sound Mirror, 2001”, in wood, paper and model cars.

Just as sound travels as vibrations in air and light through the lumiferous aether, the sounds of phasma or “auditory ghosts” are conducted through the soniferous aether. A reflector constructed from resonant materials at a large enough scale may access these sounds when focused on an appropriate site.
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So now we know.

A fossilised Jodrell Bank?

Between Channels: Edwardian gentlemen, muffled against the cold, are sat in the shelter of their giant concrete discs grimly waiting for the whisper of Zeppelins or Gothas which will bring down destruction on Holderness or Hythe …. a fossilised Jodderel bank, will always arouse the hauntological curiousity in me.

The Séance at Hob’s Lane by Drew Mulholland/Mount Vernon Arts Lab, seems to be another album with the Denge mirrors on the cover.

Listening Vessels at the San Francisco Exploratorium

Listening Vessels consists of two large parabolic reflectors set at least 50 feet apart which act as mirrors to reflect sound from one to the other. Two people sit opposite each other at approximately the focal point for each reflector, so that the sound coming from each reflector is focused at this point, allowing each visitor to clearly hear the other’s voice, even at a very low decibel in spite of the distance separating the vessels.
Source: The Exploratorium

Modern technology at Maghtab

Maltese telecoms firm GO has updated the kit at its Maghtab site, by the sound mirror:

In comments, [Prime Minister] Dr Gonzi said the Maghtab headend site was symbolically important because of the sound mirror, a primitive radar built some 70 years ago to detect and amplify the sounds of air and sea vessels nearing Malta.

This is the only sound mirror built outside England but became outdated within three to seven years since being built because it was replaced by radars.

Dr Gonzi said that even nowadays, major investment in technology became outdated quickly and companies needed to continue investing consistently.

GO fully equipped to transmit English and Italian football, Annaliza Borg, The Malta Independent