Acoustic Mirrors Across the Channel
The massive concrete acoustic mirrors, or “listening ears,” lining the southeast coast of England were built between the world wars to monitor the skies for the telltale sounds of airborne invasion. The Sound Mirrors Project plans to construct two such acoustic mirrors on opposite sides of the 25-mile-wide English Channel, precisely positioned so as to allow international parabolic communication:
Visitors to the new mirrors will be able to climb up to a listening platform in front of the mirror in the manner of the orignal listeners at the historic mirrors. Rather than straining for the sound of distant aeroplane engines, people will be listening to the sounds of the sea, as well as for voices speaking to them from across the Channel.
A new advanced acoustic technology will allow transmitted sounds from the other mirror to be audible only at a particular focal point in front of the dish — focused at the small area around the listener’s head. The person standing at the focus point will hear a complete “holographic” binaural sound image which will appear to becoming from the air all around them.
* A Short History of Acoustic Location
August 21st, 2006 at 4:31 pm
How far away are the two mirrors from each other?
August 21st, 2006 at 9:34 pm
I know they set up this unbelievably complex bureaucracy to detect German planes in WWII and get their limited number of fighters in the air, but this is ridiculous.
Did it work?
August 21st, 2006 at 10:19 pm
[...] 5 - Acoustic Mirrors Across the Channel The Kircher Society has a short piece on the revival of acoustic mirrors. (tags: Channel English mirrors acoustic sound listening technology science) [...]
December 6th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
At best (as an early warning system) the sound mirrors performed very poorly, much like (despite massive investment of public money) the recent “Sound Mirrors Project”! Lisa Autogena’s interests are very similar to ideas published years earlier by the art / music / film group Disinformation, and so far Lisa Autogena’s “Sound Mirrors Project” seems to be be at least 5 years late delivering on the predictions she made for its own completion.
January 10th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
The NEXT sound mirrors exhibit will be at…
Saltburn Artists Projects
30 Marske Road
Saltburn TS12 1QG
United Kingdom
20 Jan to 11 March 2007
Where Barry Hale’s “Blackout” will be appearing (as part of the “Fire in the Eye” exhibition by Disinformation). Check further details at http://rixc.lv/waves/en/txt08.html and http://www.discogs.com/release/117617
February 19th, 2007 at 6:44 am
A clip from the Sound Mirrors video by Disinformation is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsR3qyJDk0c