I took on the responsibility of sourcing sounds for our interactive 3D print sculpture. 

As discussed the main theme of this particular prototype revolved around homogenous beauty standards and the great and terrifying levels we go to in order to achieve “perfection.” 

I wanted to find sounds that were jarring; somewhat disturbing. After discussing with the team, our tutors, and the class, every time we used words like “shave” the jawbone, people would cringe at the mere thought. Makes you wonder, what does that actually sound like? It’s not a pretty visual. 

What was tricky about sound sourcing is that foley sounds are often not what they seem. For example if you look up “bone breaking” the resulting sound samples are nothing like what you’d need. They are subtle, and dull; we needed something that really got through to the user. So instead I started looking up “leaves crunching” and “twigs snapping.” You have to think a little outside the box in order to get the results you want when it comes to sound design. 

The eye-popping noise was in fact a plunger. 
The crunch was a dog chewing a milkbone. 
The skull was a table saw. 
The jaw was masking tape, slowly being ripped.

By downloading and converting certain sound files, we could then upload them to the Bare Conductive touchboard and assign them to particular trigger points. I’ll discuss the touch boards next.