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The
"TUBOFONO" is a machine made of PVC tubes which modifies
the imputted sounds through exclusively mechanical treatments. In the
version for Dorno (Pavia), July 1987 the "TUBOFONO"
extended over an area of 5Ox7O meters and connected acoustically two
squares of the village.
In that version the input consisted of the sound of 20 instruments of the local brass-band: the scores which were performed partly belonged to the band's repertoire, partly they had been elaborated with stochastic methods based on the fractals theory. The band played in one of the squares: each tube picked up the sound of two players and carried it for about 40 meters till the main structure of an ecliptical form in the other square. In that part of the machine the sounds were mixed by groups inside some metallic mixing chambers which were insulated by cement-asbestos walls; finally the sounds reached the output and were distributes to various points of the square and presented to the listeners. The "TUBOFONO" was an open machine, so the listeners too could input sounds by themselves into the tubes, and also these sounds were elaborated by the machine.
The "TUBOFONO" is a low-fi machine; the interest of such a totally acoustic machine resides in the difference it creates between the input of well known instruments and the output: the sounds undergo a first filtering where the size of the tubes (5 cm. of diameter) acts as a filter, secondly they undergo an active filtering because of the action of the shape and quality of the materials. Another, both active and passive, filtering, and reverberation occur in the mixing chambers. Furthermore both amplitude and frequency modulations are likely to occur - although not noticeable to the same degree - resulting from the longitudinal vibrations of the tubes themselves.
from
1987 Firenze, Dorno
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