International Workshop on the Aesthetics of Ventilation Sound

About the workshop

Ventilation systems are ubiquitous these days. They are central to contemporary architectural design and ensure good air in private and professional indoor environments. However, the aesthetic qualities of ventilation sound are rarely discussed.

This workshop explores and discusses ventilation sound by gathering a group of scientists, artists, and engineers. Participants are encouraged to contribute to the workshop by presenting their research, artistic works, or engineering innovations related to ventilation systems. We welcome a range of topics, including but not limited to:

• psychoacoustics and human perception of ventilation sound
• sound design and acoustic engineering in ventilation systems
• artistic interpretation and representation of ventilation sound
• cultural and social considerations of ventilation sound
• innovative approaches to improve the aesthetics of ventilation sound

The workshop will provide a platform for networking, knowledge sharing, and collaboration among people from different fields and backgrounds. We hope it will inspire more innovative and creative thinking in designing and implementing ventilation systems.

Program

Photos

Stream

The lecture parts of the workshop will be streamed on YouTube.

Abstracts and bios

What is interesting about ventilation sound?

In 2023, Alexander Refsum Jensenius recorded 365 different indoor environments. The aim was to understand more about how audiovisual environmental stimuli influence the human mind and body. Ventilation sound was among the few common denominators in many rooms. Some people call it ventilation noise, which implies that it is unwanted "information". However, ventilation sound may not necessarily be unwanted. Some people enjoy white or pink noise when working and may appreciate the sound of a good ventilation system. However, what is a "good" ventilation sound, and how would it impact people?

Alexander Refsum Jensenius is a music researcher and research musician. He is a professor of music technology, working on topics of musical embodiment and new approaches to musical exploration. He is widely published, including Sound Actions: Conceptualizing Musical Instruments, Sonic Design: Explorations between Art and Science, A NIME Reader: Fifteen Years of New Interfaces for Musical Expression.

Ventilation systems

What are ventilation systems, and how do they work? This presentation will introduce HVAC systems (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning). The primary source of noise is the fan. Another significant source is the noise generated by airflow. A fan, or air handling unit, located in a plant room, draws air through a pipe in the external wall. The fan then delivers the air via a duct system, which includes branches, bends, a plenum chamber, and a diffuser or grille, to the receiving rooms. The main criterion for selecting a fan is the volume flow rate of air that needs to be moved, along with the pressure drop in the duct network. The size of the fan is also a key factor, as the noise output increases rapidly with speed. Typically, fans emit the majority of their sound power at lower frequencies. Minimizing noise requires ensuring smooth airflow, as turbulence can significantly increase noise levels. Airflow-generated noise occurs at branches, bends, silencers, and the diffuser or grille. Disturbances from airflow are typically in the mid to higher frequency ranges. Many of these components also attenuate noise throughout the system. Noise at higher frequencies is much easier to attenuate than components at lower frequencies. Common prediction methods are not highly accurate, so a safety margin of a few decibels is strongly recommended in the engineering of HVAC systems.

Anders Homb is a Senior Research Scientist at SINTEF, having completed his Doctoral thesis in 2006 at the Faculty of Information Technology, Mathematics, and Electrical Engineering at NTNU. From 2011 to 2021, he served as an associate professor and later a professor at NTNU's Department of Civil and Transport Engineering. His research focuses on building acoustics, noise, and vibrations. Key topics include sound insulation, sound absorption, noise from technical installations, and HVAC systems. Dissemination of research findings in journals and at conferences is a high priority, alongside developing guidelines for the Norwegian construction sector.

The sound of...

I have waged a continuous war on ventilation sound throughout my years as a filmmaker. I have escaped, cursed, and tried to minimize it and edit it out of my footage. In this film, I will return to my footage and do the opposite. I will highlight the ventilation sounds and treat human talk as unwanted noise.

Audun Bjerknes is an educational film producer at LINK - Centre for Learning, Innovation and Academic Development at the University of Oslo. He looks for moments in science and research that inspire and motivate learning and growth in our complex and continually changing society. Audun has extensive experience in the professional film and television industry in Norway and has been working as a media teacher in high school. He holds degrees in documentary filmmaking and educational science.

From Sound to Noise: Perception and management of ordinary noise disturbances in India

Through its grip on our perception, noise permeates our environment and becomes inscribed, deliberately managed or not, in our living spaces. Vehicular traffic is quite dense in the Indian city, the din of horns deafening, and sidewalks and pedestrian areas nearly non-existent. People are immediately immersed in a very dense milieu that initially gives the impression of a vast chaos of sound. Christine Guillebaud¡¯s research aims to rehabilitate noise as a category of analysis. It is based on the in situ perception of residents and the work carried out by legal professionals, public actors, and non-governmental organizations who locally monitor the conflict. The presentation will introduce specific methodologies developed to account for ordinary perception, as well as an analysis of the particular ethics that emerge from relations of disturbance.

Christine Guillebaud is a social anthropologist and an ethnomusicologist, a research fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), and holds a teaching position at the University of Geneva. She is currently leading the MILSON program, which is dedicated to studying sound environments in their sociocultural context of production and perception. She has carried out long-term fieldwork in India and recently edited the volume Toward an Anthropology of Ambient Sound (2017) and co-edited Worship Sound Spaces. Architecture, Acoustics and Anthropology (2020), and Singing the Past (2023).

Exploring continuous noise-based sounds in the urban landscape

For most urban dwellers, what is commonly perceived as noise is either a source of annoyance or is simply ignored. However, within that noise, there may be intriguing elements inviting a more engaged listening, perhaps obscured from us due to acoustic masking, their fleeting nature, or simply because we¡¯ve grown so accustomed to them that we no longer bother to listen. The complexity of the urban soundscape, with its dense overlap of spectral information, presents greater challenges for study compared to natural environments, where organisms naturally find their own spectral niches for communication. This presentation highlights key moments from my work with 3D site-specific sound installations designed to engage listeners with the urban soundscape by uncovering intriguing features often hidden in everyday experience. The project harnesses the potential of spatially separated sounds to improve the accuracy of sound analysis and the connection to real-world experience in immersive sound art. The presentation will include immersive sound examples.

Natasha Barrett is a freelance composer, new media artist, and researcher. She creates acousmatic and live-electronic concert music, public space sound installations, and audiovisual works. She is widely known for her artistic exploration of 3D sound and ambisonics. Her work is commissioned and performed worldwide and has received honours in over 30 international competitions, including the most prestigious prize available for Nordic composers, the Nordic Council Music Prize. In 2023, her research documentation CD Reconfiguring the Landscape was rated Number 1 in The Wire magazine's Contemporary Classics. In addition to her solo career, she regularly collaborates with performers, visual artists, architects, and scientists and often draws on data as a source for both musical and scientific exploration. She is also the co-director of the performance ensemble Electric Audio Unit, which curates and performs spatial music concerts and has held professorships in Norway and Denmark.

How do we deal with noise pollution in ventilation systems? From a building material suppliers perspective

In this presentation, I want to enlighten you on some of the challenges we experience with noise in the ventilation systems and maybe explain some of the reasons and how we can avoid them. First, Norwegian law gives us the permitted noise values. Suppose the building contract from the building owner does not describe the needs in detail. You will never get anything besides the legal minimum quality of sound prevention in your system. The next thing is the actual installation by the builders. If the builders, often sub-contractors, are not adequately instructed about your needs, you will seldom get anything other than the cheapest legal minimum. I will also try to demonstrate the different types of noise we experience in ventilation systems, where it comes from, and how to absorb or stop the noise.

Stig Ronny Fredrikstuen is a sales engineer at Glava AS. He has worked for Glava since 2016 with HVAC systems and insulation solutions for residential, public, and commercial buildings. Our focus is on energy optimization, health, and sustainability. He has a professional engineering degree in management, operation, maintenance, and development. After ten years as an industrial plumber, he moved on to solutions and sales and has 26 years of experience in construction and building.

[HYPER]aesthesilatio

This 15-minute original performance, titled [HYPER]aesthesilatio, engages with the concepts of Umwelt, enaction, and habituation. Also drawing on Schwab¡¯s notion of ¡°transposition¡±, it aims to transpose and isolate ¡°harmonic¡± sensory characteristics ¨C both musical and spatial frequencies ¨C captured through field recordings in environments with/without ventilation systems. The contribution raises key questions: What do we hear? What do we see? Do we see what we hear? Do we hear what we see?... In light of the mentioned theories and concepts, how can humans, as living organisms, inhabit different "Umwelten" related to ventilation systems, even within shared environments? This aesthetic and sensory exploration, followed by a brief discussion, seeks to expand the dialogue around the aesthetics of ventilation sound in relation to our perceptual and cognitive experiences, emphasizing the role of repetition and familiarity in shaping our sensory awareness. Moreover, it highlights the phenomenon of sensory processing sensitivity, considering how individuals¡¯ unique sensory thresholds interact with ventilation systems. This interdisciplinary exploration bridges sound art, cognitive theory, and acoustic ecology, offering a space for both aesthetic contemplation and theoretical reflection on the human interaction with ambient soundscapes.

Maxime Michaud is currently pursuing a PhD in Communication at the Universit¨¦ du Qu¨¦bec ¨¤ Montr¨¦al (UQAM). He holds a Master of Arts in Communication specializing in Research-Creation in Experimental Media from the same institution under the Hexagram Network. His master¡¯s thesis was awarded the Prix Philippe- M¨¦nard for the Best Research-Creation Master's Thesis. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication focusing on Filmmaking (Directing). Michaud's research and creative interests span cognitive science ¡ª particularly the concepts of enaction and embodiment ¡ª along with phenomenology and avant-garde research-creation practices. His work explores human beings' sensory and subjective experience, strongly emphasizing interdisciplinary approaches that merge experimental media, documentary film, medical sciences, and biofeedback art. His projects delve into altered states of consciousness, immersion, neurodiversity, and hypersensitivity (Sensory Processing Sensitivity), often reflecting on the notion of "well-being" in contemporary society. Michaud continually pushes the boundaries of media creation, integrating innovative methodologies to explore the human lived experience.

365 shades of noise

We present an array of computational methodologies for analyzing a dataset of 365 ten-minute-long room recordings from Alexander Refsum Jensenius' StillStanding project. We outline machine strategies for categorizing these sounds. Many of these recordings feature ventilation sounds. Adopting an "acousmatic" approach, we perform a detailed analysis of the abstract sound characteristics of the ventilation sounds. We utilise a range of computational descriptors related to timbre, rhythm, and longer temporal structures, along with musical concepts. Additionally, we use the spatial information in First Order Ambisonics to analyze the directional characteristics of the soundscapes and decode directional audios to separate foreground and background activities. This approach introduces a comprehensive set of descriptors for ventilation sounds (and soundscapes in general), extending beyond the basic descriptors typically considered in this field. Consequently, it provides a richer depiction of the aesthetic qualities of these sounds. Our investigation offers valuable insights with significant implications for the computational analysis of music in general and electroacoustic music in particular.

Olivier Lartillot is a researcher at RITMO, UiO, working in the fields of computational music, sound analysis, and artificial intelligence. He designed MIRtoolbox, a recognised tool for extracting music features from audio. He also works on symbolic music analysis, notably sequential pattern mining. He also conceived the MiningSuite, an analytical framework that combines audio and symbolic research.

Arthur Jinyue Guo is a doctoral research fellow at RITMO, UiO, working on machine synchresis and investigating audio-visual rhythms in in-door environments using multimodal information retrieval.

Ventilation hacking

Noise from ventilation systems can cause acoustic interference by masking important sounds, such as conversations or musical notes. Often, HVAC systems emphasize specific frequencies in the low to mid-range, dominating the soundscape. This study examines innovative approaches to mitigate the issue of unwanted ventilation noise, transforming it from a disruptive element into a source of ambient or musical sound. The research explores a range of solutions, from mechanical adjustments to acoustic treatments and digital interventions. Non-invasive techniques were applied to enhance user experience, demonstrating that ventilation systems can be reimagined to create acoustically pleasant environments without compromising their primary function.       

Maham Riaz is a music technologist with a background in immersive audio for film and games. Her research focuses on indoor audiovisual rhythms and their effects on the human body. She is a PhD fellow at RITMO, UiO.

Ioannis Theodoridis is an acclaimed Swedish / Greek guitarist working as a research fellow at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. He researches musicians' common physical difficulties, how musicians and institutions talk about and conceptualise physical difficulties of playing, and how related movement dysfunctions can impact instrumentalists' coordination and abilities. He has an (until known) unexposed interest in hacking ventilation systems.

The Sonification of Ventilation Recordings and Gamifying Invisible Sounds

The Sonification of Ventilation Recordings and Gamifying Invisible Sounds is a creative project that transforms recordings of ventilation systems at RITMO into a musical composition, exploring the hidden acoustic qualities of everyday environments and turning them into an ambisonic auditory experience.

Juliet Merchant is an award-winning composer and pianist recognized for her work on Soviet silent film scores commissioned by Klassiki and NCCA. Her debut came with the score for Gerry Fox¡¯s documentary Force of Nature: Natalia (2019). She has composed for films including A Life for a Life, The Girl with the Hatbox, and The House on the Volcano, which was recorded with the Conservatory Orchestra of Armenia. This received an "outstanding" review by Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian and ¡°an absolute triumph¡± by Fin Logie from Lossi 36. Her work has been showcased internationally at venues like MoMA, Institut Fran?ais, and Curzon Cinemas, with films available on Klassiki and MUBI. Having completed her master¡¯s at Oxford University, where she focused on advancing her expertise in composition, she continues to engage in projects that challenge conventional boundaries and inspire critical engagement with contemporary issues.

RITMO Largo

The workshop is organized in connection to RITMO Largo 2024, which will be held on Tuesday, 3 December. Please consider attending if you are interested in the broader perspective of RITMO's activities.

The AMBIENT project

The workshop is organized by the project AMBIENT: Bodily Entrainment to Audiovisual Rhythms, running from 2021-2025, funded by the Research Council of Norway. The primary objective is to understand more about bodily entrainment to audiovisual rhythms in both local and telematic environments.