Attila Faravelli

Aural Tools produces small series of simple objects that document the material and conceptual processes behind the sound practices of specific musicians. Each device offers a way of relating sound to space, to the listener and to the body, beyond what can be conveyed by traditional media such as CDs or vinyl.

Aural Tools was founded and is run by Attila Faravelli.

‍

Trifoglio

Trifoglio is a portable stereo loudspeaker designed by Attila Faravelli. It invites a form of listening that is both intimate and spatially complex. Unlike conventional loudspeakers, it is designed to be held in the hands, like a book, and listened to at close range.

"A few years ago, I was no longer satisfied with the way some of my recordings sounded on normal speakers. The space sounded flat, as if all the sounds were arranged in a line. In researching speaker design, I learned that the purpose of the speaker cabinet is to separate the front of the cone from the rear: a speaker acts like a piston, pushing air forward while sucking air in behind it. Without a cabinet, these opposing movements tend to cancel each other out.

I wanted to test this directly. I dismantled some speakers and started listening to them without speakers. What I discovered surprised me: when I listened closely to an open cone, I entered a sound field where each ear received sound coming from opposite directions, in inverted phase. The result was not high fidelity in the usual sense of the word, but something stranger and more alive. It reminded me of how sound exists in real environments: complex, unstable, distributed. I also noticed that holding the cones in my hands made the experience more captivating. I couldn't do much else while I was listening. The speaker became a physical presence, not just a sound source. This seemed important to me, especially considering how often music is consumed while doing something else.

Trifoglio was born of this experience. Its curved shape gently directs sound towards the listener's head, while the open cone radiates into the room. The result depends on how it's held, the position of the person and how the space reacts.

I designed Trifoglio with the act of reading in mind. Like reading a book, it invites concentration, but unlike headphones, it doesn't cut you off from the outside world. Initially, I planned to publish only my own compositions. But as my work progressed, I asked friends, most of them musicians and sound artists, to give me their opinion. Many of them expressed the wish to compose especially for this instrument. That's how the project opened up: I provide the object, and others contribute with pieces created for its particular acoustic behavior."

‍

‍

Freie Aerophone

Freie Aerophone is inspired by Matija Schellander's solo pieces for double bass and drill.

Instructions for use

Choose one of the rhombes. Hold the rope firmly in one hand and give the rhombus a gentle nudge.

Rotate it in a wide circle around your head or at your side.

The rhombus must rotate on its axis while spinning in order to produce a sound.

Variations in size, string length, rotational speed and room acoustics will affect the character of the sound.

Freie Aerophone is inspired by Matija Schellander's solo pieces for double bass and drill. These performances make extensive use of indistinct, low-frequency sounds that resonate in space, combined with circular movements that project the sound by physically moving the instrument. In Hornbostel Sachs' classification of musical instruments (Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 1914), a "free aerophone" is an instrument in which the vibrating air is not enclosed by the instrument itself. Mermaids and rhombuses are examples.

The rhombe is generally a flat wooden slat that produces a roaring sound when swung at the end of a rope or string. It has been used in ceremonial and recreational contexts since the Palaeolithic. The oldest known examples date from around 17,000 BC in the Ukraine. Versions of this instrument have been found in Europe, Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Africa, America and Australia. Its widespread presence can be explained by a remarkable quality: this small, portable and simple tool is capable of producing deep, low tones that seem out of all proportion to its size.

I first met Matija when I invited him to perform in my small studio in Milan. During this concert, he played a double bass solo that made the whole room resonate. He produced deep, penetrating sounds that filled the space and enveloped the listeners. In one long piece, he spun slowly in circles with his instrument for over fifteen minutes. By physically moving the sound source, he activated the room's acoustics in a very subtle and complex way.

After a while, we came up with the idea of marketing a rhombus as a tool that could, in a way, reflect the acoustic gesture Matija makes when he plays the double bass.

We chose to manufacture it from thick recycled cardboard rather than wood. It's safer and lighter, without compromising the acoustic effect. ‍

‍

Transducer

The transducer is derived from a functionally similar instrument built by Australian sound artist Felicity Mangan.

Instructions for use

Attach the stronger magnet (the flat disk) to a magnetic surface, or place it between two non-magnetic surfaces using the two magnets, one on each side (e.g. a wooden door, cardboard box or book).

Slowly move the T-tube towards the magnet. Maximum energy transfer occurs when the magnet is centered inside the copper coil.

You can adjust volume and resonance by altering the distance between the T-tube and the magnet.

Explore different materials and objects. Listen to how they react and feel how vibrations propagate through different substrates.

Attention

Be careful not to trap your fingers between the magnets. Magnets can damage credit cards, hard drives, data storage media or other electronic devices.

‍

Current design practices in Western industrialized societies aspire to a logic of form that reduces our ability to perceive the depth and breadth of our material involvement in the world around us. According to this logic of form, the lines or conduits of energetic and material circulation are enveloped in opaque, closed surfaces that conspire to hide these circulations from perception and present the appearance of discrete, finite entities.
(Mike Anusas, Tim Ingold, 2013)

"When I first saw Felicity Mangan perform live, she had assembled a particular sound system from ready-made objects. She broadcast recordings of various animals from a portable MP3 player, via a car audio amplifier, into a copper coil. By pinching a cardboard box with magnets and surrounding it with the coil, she transformed the cardboard into a loudspeaker.Felicity's interest in audio transducers stems in part from studies showing that :

"Vibration communication is widespread in insect social and ecological interactions. Of the insect species that communicate using sound, water surface ripples or substrate vibrations, we estimate that 92% use substrate vibrations alone or with other forms of mechanical signalling. Vibratory signals differ considerably from airborne sounds emitted by insects, as they often have low frequencies, pure tones and combinations of contrasting acoustic elements. Plants are the most widely used substrate for transmitting vibratory signals." (Reginald B. Cocroft, Rafael L. Rodríguez, 2005)

We wanted our version of Felicity's "do it yourself" device to be relatively self-contained, to make it easy to handle. The T-shaped tube serves as both coil and housing for the electronic components.

We also liked the fact that copper changes color over time. It's a technological component that reacts to air and humidity, behaving more like an organic material than an industrial one. Unlike plastic, copper conducts heat: it heats up on contact with the hand and thanks to the electromagnetic activity of the coil.

The sounds transmitted by the object reflect the evolving pressures of this type of communication. Insects use exposed surfaces (leaves, stems, soil) that are constantly disturbed by wind, rain or movement. To be heard in this unstable environment, their signals have evolved to become highly structured, simple and distinct. This is why the device reproduces both digitally generated low-frequency sine waves that mimic these basic vibration patterns, and field recordings made by biologist Juan López Díez using laser vibrometers. These recordings accurately capture the vibratory activity of insects on plants, revealing the delicate interplay between environmental signals and noise in the natural world."

‍

Ma [null]

Developed in collaboration with sound artists Fabio Perletta and Luigi Turr

"Ma [vacuum] consists of a pair of loudspeakers placed close together and broadcasting the same sound in reversed polarity. When aligned, their output is almost entirely silent due to phase cancellation. The only way to make sound emerge is to actively disturb this balance, for example by separating the two loudspeakers, inserting objects or hands between them, or moving them in space.

In this sense, the sound produced by the device is not a direct output, but the negative of an action, an object or a presence in space. It is shaped by that which interrupts it."

"Ma [vacuum] was developed in collaboration with sound artists Fabio Perletta and Luigi Turra. The object is inspired by their long-standing research into the Japanese term ma ( 間 ), which can be translated as interval, pause, space or void between two structural elements. It refers not only to physical space, but also to an aesthetic and philosophical concept widely present in everyday life. Ma also refers to ephemeral presences generated by absence, such as the forms created by shadows, understood as the absence of light.

Perletta and Turra were interested in linking this concept to the aesthetics of Japanese architect Tadao Ando, whose work often plays with emptiness, shadow and silence. Their project began with a series of three sound compositions exploring a non-existent, changing, discontinuous and rhizomatic listening space. Over time, the project evolved into radio works, installations and long-term performances. The object developed with Aural Tools is a new attempt to link the ephemeral nature of sound with a material, sculptural form.

The technical basis of the object comes from an idea I'd been working on independently for some time: to use two identical loudspeakers broadcasting the same sound, but wired in opposite phase. When placed face to face, the sound they emit is largely cancelled out. I had explored this configuration in earlier experiments, fascinated by the way subtle changes in distance or obstruction could dramatically alter the acoustic result.

When Fabio told me about the ma project, it immediately echoed my experiences working with sound cancellation and Ando's architecture, spaces built through absence, delay and shadow. We realized that the interruption of a phase-cancelled sound field by a physical gesture or placement could function as a sonic metaphor for ma."

‍

Attila Faravelli

Born 1976
Based in Milan

Attila Faravelli is an Italian sound artist and electroacoustic musician based in Milan, Italy. His practice spans field recording, performances, workshops and design. Through these activities, he explores the material and spatial conditions of sound, focusing on its relational and site-specific dimensions. His work has been presented internationally in festivals, exhibitions and research contexts. He has collaborated with Armin Linke, Rossella Biscotti, Riccardo Giacconi, Kamal Aljafari, Martina Melilli, Gürcan Keltek, Teatro Valdoca and Mariangela Gualtieri, among others. He collaborates regularly with percussionist Enrico Malatesta and is a member of Superpaesaggio alongside Malatesta and Nicola Ratti. He is the founder and curator of Aural Tools, a series of objects documenting the material and conceptual processes of sound production by specific musicians.