Building an Anechoic Chamer with metaLAB
Team
Matthew Battles
Mike Heller
Cristoforo Magliozzi
Melissa Marshall
Peter McMurray
James Yamada
Date
October 2015
An anechoic chamber is a room designed to stop reflections of sound or electromagnetic waves. The word "anechoic" means "non-reflective". Anechoic chambers are enclosed by an external metallic shielding, which provides isolation from the outside environment.Anechoic chambers were first used in the early 1950s for experiments and research on radio equipment and antennas. They are typically used when a high level of accuracy is required, such as for evaluating speakers, electronic components, and for university research.Anechoic chambers are so quiet that no sound enters your ear canals. The only sounds you hear are generated by your own body. You might hear blood moving through your head and/or a high pitched hissing originating in the auditory nerve.
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Matthew Battles
Mike Heller
Cristoforo Magliozzi
Melissa Marshall
Peter McMurray
James Yamada
Date
October 2015
An anechoic chamber is a room designed to stop reflections of sound or electromagnetic waves. The word "anechoic" means "non-reflective". Anechoic chambers are enclosed by an external metallic shielding, which provides isolation from the outside environment.Anechoic chambers were first used in the early 1950s for experiments and research on radio equipment and antennas. They are typically used when a high level of accuracy is required, such as for evaluating speakers, electronic components, and for university research.Anechoic chambers are so quiet that no sound enters your ear canals. The only sounds you hear are generated by your own body. You might hear blood moving through your head and/or a high pitched hissing originating in the auditory nerve.
“In collaboration with Peter McMurray (Harvard) and Michael Heller (Pitt), metaLAB has developed a portable chamber, designed by metaLAB creative technologist James Yamada and built chiefly by Cris Magliozzi and Melissa Marshall, to test and explore the cultural and material dimensions of audition. We’ve learned that silence is a fabrication—a designed thing, made in dialogue with fractious materials and particular habits of body, mind, and sensibility."
—Matthew Battles, metaLAB
