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Sweet and Savoury is an interactive installation that uses foley to create a surreal experience for the participants. The installation demonstrates how sounds can be associated to more than one object, and when combined to create specific settings, can create a totally different atmosphere and story that plays with the participant’s imagination.

 

Sweet and Savoury

Videos:

 

 

{Aftermath}

 

 

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For my final project, I decided to stick to working with foley, but this time with a plot twist. After the mid-sem presentation and some consultations and discussions, here’s the project idea I’ve decided to work on:

Sweet and Savoury

Main goal: A sense of discovery in a surreal experience

  • Sound association: Creating sounds with objects and immediately associating them to each other respectively.
  • Surreal experience: The uncanny feeling when the sound first associated with an object is now being associated to an entirely different object/action.

Sound Research

There are many objects that can be used to make sounds similar to other objects/actions. However, I had to make sure the objects I chose can come together to create a logical scene (e.g: cooking, gardening, etc.), especially since I was planning to portray two different scenes in my installation.

Here are some references and examples I found for foley sounds:

What Was That? The Top 15 Foley SFX From Everyday Household Objects

 

Cracking bones; snapping celery/carrot

Flapping wings; waving leather gloves

Body punches; hitting a thick book

Fire crackling; cellophane, chips bag, steel wool

Stack of cash; deck of cards

metal blinds; measuring tape

Grass footsteps; shaking shredded newspaper in plastic bag

Egg cracking; breaking ice cream cone

Water showering; dropping rice

 

The foley sound effects I found were really interesting, but I was having trouble creating a scene where the items make sense together. It was easier in my mid-sem project, The Study Room, where the objects on the foley side did not need to make sense together and only needed to create sounds that resemble those in the study room side.

At this point, I found that food had a lot of potential to make interesting variety of foley sounds, so I decided to go with the theme of cooking. This is when I began listening to cooking ASMR videos. I would play them but only listen to the video, allowing my imagination to help me associate the sounds to different objects. I also started testing out sounds myself with different fruits and food items and found that they can be rather gore sounding. This is when I thought of the ‘Sweet and Savoury’ concept; one scene will be making an innocent, sweet snack, while the other will be the preparation of a savoury meal with a plot twist (for shock factor).

 

After researching and running several tests, these were the objects I decided to put together to form each scene:

{Sweet}

  • pomegranate (tearing apart and removing seeds = ripping fingers off hand)
  • grapefruit (tearing apart and juicing by hand = squishy meat/guts sounds)
  • chocolate bar/wafer (snapping in half = breaking thin finger bones)
  • pop rocks (fizzing and popping = sizzling of oil in pan when meat is added)

{Savoury}

  • (fake) human hand
  • minced meat/patty
  • oil in pan

 

Setup

Equipment:

  • Audio recorder
  • Speakers
  • Foley objects
  • Props for scenes
  • table
  • Cloth divider

 

Layout sketch:

 

Setup planning:

 

Preparation of actual setup:

Sweet (foley side).

 

Savoury (observation side).

 

Speakers and recorder setup (hidden inside the cloth divider).

 

Side view of speakers and recorder setup (the cloth at the side of the divider can part, allowing me to reach through to control the equipment inside).

 

Flow of events:

  • Participant is seated in front of the sweet setup (foley side) and briefed on the ‘cooking’ instructions
  • Once they are ready to begin ‘cooking’, the recording will start and will only end when they are done with the entire foley process.
  • Participants will then move over to sit in front of the savoury setup (observation side), where the recorded audio will be played back for them to hear as they observe the new setting before them.

Intended result:

  • Participants will follow the ‘cooking’ instructions given and create the foley sounds.
  • The sounds they make will be strongly associated to what they see as they go about the foley process.
  • Upon hearing the recording play back when they are seated at the savoury side, they will have a surreal experience as they start associating the sounds they once made to entirely different objects.
  • Through pairing the familiar audio with a new visual setup, the participant will be somewhat tricked into feel as though they were the one who made the gore scene before them, creating a surreal experience.

 

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Here’s some mid-sem project documentation for The Study Room. Overall, I’m glad that both the audience and the participants had fun. The flow was just about how I imagined it to be; the participant on the foley side makes the proper sound effects, while the other participant makes (almost) all the associations to the actual objects.

 

The main issue would be that it was hard to hear some of the softer sounds, especially since there were louder sounds coming from other parts of the room. Other than that, I’m glad the instructions were clear enough on the foley side, specially since other sounds can be made that might be harder to associate them to the objects.

 

Setup

Study room setup

Foley Setup

Instructions

Foley keyboard

Foley notebook

Foley keys

 

 

How It Works

Presenting the (willing) participants, Fizah and Bryan. [Thanks, guys. Very cool B)]

In the first video, we can see Fizah having to lean in a little to hear the sounds better. In the second project, I think I can add speakers to amplify the sounds. Watching the second part where they switched sections showed that sense of discovery for the both of them. It was mentioned that hearing the sounds somewhat entices them to do the action, so that;s what happened in the second video.

 

 

 

 

/Possible Ideas for Digital Project/

Main goal: A Surreal Experience

  • Entice: make the audience want to do a certain action using sounds; influence / control their actions through sound association
  • Confuse: resulting sounds that do not match the anticipated one.
  • Enhance: bring attention to everyday sounds.

 

Equipment:

  • Photo-resistor
  • Motion sensor
  • Pressure sensor
  • Tilt sensor
  • Speaker
  • Actual props
  • Foley items

 

Set-up #1: Sound Tak Tally

 

Flow of events:

  • Approaching/Passing by motion sensor at respective item triggers sfx to play (e.g: glass shattering)
  • Participant may interact with the item to replicate the sound (e.g: pushing the glass off the edge)
  • Sensor detects movement of item from interaction and triggers wrong sfx (e.g: squeaking instead of shattering)
  • Repeat with other items

Intended outcome:

  • For the participant to feel enticed to carry out an action (irresistible temptation to match sound to an action)
  • Taking away that satisfaction by playing a sound that does not match their action
  • Experiencing something surreal and confusing

 

Set-up #2: Sense in Sound

 

Flow of events:

  • Approaching/Passing by motion sensor at respective item triggers distorted sfx to play (e.g: distorted mug stirring sound)
  • Participant may interact with the item (e.g: picking it up, using it in a common manner)
  • Sensor detects movement of item from interaction and triggers correct sfx to play (e.g: sound playing is no longer distorted)
  • Putting the item back resets the sound back to being distorted
  • Repeat with other items

Intended outcome:

  • For the participant to be curious about the item and sound not matching
  • Interaction with the item allows them to uncover the true sound it makes
  • Experiencing something surreal and confusing
  • Bringing attention to everyday sounds

 

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Main goal

  • Defamiliarize an everyday experience
  • Mixing up sight and sound: same motion, different sound; same sound, different object
  • Confusing the senses and creating a surreal experience

 

Set-up

[Two tables, representing the rooms, placed in a reflected position.]

 

Study room #1

A table with various materials that create the same sound as items that can be found on a study desk.

Participants can:

  • Touch and interact with everything on the table (e.g: dragging, picking up and putting down, pressing, ripping, etc.)

Intended result:

  • To confuse the participant with sound; they know it is a study room, but the sight does not match with the look of a desk that they are familiar with
  • Through interaction, the objects will create a sound that the participant can link to an object commonly found on a desk

 

Study room #2

A table with the actual objects we find on a study table, each item corresponding with the items from room #1.

Participants can:

  • Sit in the chair and observe (e.g: listen to the sounds created from room #1)

Intended result:

  • Giving the participant a surreal experience; the hear the sounds, but nothing is physically moving from their point of view
  • Feel strange, as though they are having an out of body experience