The Auracle & Overtone Crown
The Auracle and Overtone Crown offer an opportunity for contemplation and visualization within a musical context. The viewer/listener wears the Overtone Crown (a wearable tuning fork instrument) while the forks are played with a bow by a performer. This creates a stereophonic field of shimmering overtones around the listener’s head. The listener is in the center of the musical experience, connected to the instrument. The Auracle is a life-size drawing that functions as a visualization of the sonic experience, and a mirror for the viewer/listener.
The Auracle
Graphite and Conté charcoal on watercolor board, 30 x 40″, 2015
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The Overtone Crown
Modified bicycle helmet, tuning forks, polymer clay, epoxy, paint, 2015
In this example, the Overtone Crown uses an octave’s worth of Biosonics tuning forks (C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C) in Pythagorean tuning. When bowed, the third harmonic of each fork resonates most strongly, so it sounds as a G major scale. The forks can easily be switched out for different scales and tunings.
Playing the Overtone Crown at the de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.