ORGAN·ISM 

VISUAL DOCUMENTATION;

ORGAN·ISM | ˈôrɡəˌnizəm - prototype phase 2
2017 -2018
ORGAN·ISM is a translational media project using elements from a disused 1910 pipe organ rescued from a church in Little Burgundy, Montreal, (that is now Salon 1861 in the Quartier de l'innovation). In this instance we use data produced from the intensity and movement of a candle to make the organ sing. 
The documentation below was taken during phase 1 prototyping. 
​The focus of the in-house staged exhibit was to test the aesthetic composition of the installation and gauge its ability  to capture and hold the viewers attention.  
Collaborators | student researchers / artists
​Navid Navab: PhD Student Indi Program, Concordia (Associate Director– Interactive Sound Design), Nima Navab: Future Indi Masters, Concordia – (Associate Researcher - Architecture, Pneumatics and Interactive Systems), Thierry Dumont: (Associate Researcher - Interactive systems and pneumatics), Garnet Willis: PhD Student Indi Program, Concordia Associate Researcher - Interactive Design),  Peter van Haaften: Masters Student, UdeM – (Associate Researcher - Interactive Sound Design), Tatev Yesayan: Under Graduate, Concordia (Associate Researcher - Physical design and fabrication),  Evan Montpellier: Graduate Certificate, McGill -( Associate Researcher -Interactive systems), Joe Browne: (Associate Researcher -Interactive systems and Sound), Joseph Thibodeau: PhD Student Indi Program, Concordia (Associate Researcher– Interactive Sound Design).
Project Overview

How can heritage objects be reanimated through contemporary technologies? Are there ways to redefine resiliency to include everyday objects that are reinvented for new purposes? What role does sensory translation play in representing the world to us through new means? These are some of the questions that the Topological Media Lab explores with the Organ-ism project. The premise is simple, but the logistics are complicated: invent the necessary tools and technologies to re-use early 20th century discarded metal and wood organ pipes as the instrument to represent immaterial data through sound and light fluctuations. Recent technological advances in sensor design and the ways in which data can be collected and manipulated now make it possible to apply some of the same techniques in performance to interactions that take place within responsive environments. Organ-ism is the product of years of committed research that has looked at new ways in which responsive media could be designed and used to create and shape content from the interaction itself. Wanting organ-ism to be more than the simple reanimation or restoration of a castaway instrument we began by looking at the basic structure of the organ’s pipes and how we could exploit their design to affectively change the sonic outcome. Through experimentation we found innovative ways of interacting with the instruments rudimentary pneumatic balance, which is based on a combination of air capacity and pressure. This means that instead of pipe playing a single note, it now has, like the human voice, the ability to move through, between and around a pitch. In other words, the organ can sing.
 

Current Research

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Mechanical Bellows | Organ Fans

Photos
Victorian Mechanical Bellows
Actual Pipe Organ Fan
Pyke Organ Clock Project:
Videos
Blacksmith Bellows

How To

Bellows Build
Impeller Fan Build
​Some reflections on the Theory and Practice of Pipe Organ Wind Supply
Resource link: https://www.mmdigest.com/Gallery/Tech/airbounc.htm
The good old topic of organ air supply surfaced again in the MMD Pipes Forum in 1999. At that time I learnt a lot from our experienced community about what devices you employ to get a stable air supply. Here is a brief review of these components and some of their properties described in acoustical engineering terms. Special attention is with the problem of regulation of transient loads, how to keep pressure constant across sudden changes in air demand. It is no cookbook on how to make a complete supply system - a prominent reason is the difficulty to specify what is required - but  hopefully you may find some dimensioning guidelines from examples given. Basic formulas and diagrams are in SI units [6], but translations into traditional units are mostly shown in parallel.
In an organ pipe the tone onset is very important and characteristic and there are several factors to determine this onset. One is the pipe itself as set up by the voicer. To keep a predictable pipe tone you must also have control of how rapidly the playing valve opens and how well the wind supply stands up to the increase in air demand when the pipe goes on. Also any subsequent pressure changes will modulate the pipe tone, notably when it sounds while other pipes go on or off, in particular in wide chords.
Wedge Bellows
Resource Link: http://www.melright.com/busker/jsart105.htm
Simulation of an Organ Air Pressure Regulator
Resource Link: http://www.fonema.se/regsim/regsim.html
PipeWind – Organ air
Resource Link: http://ensemblebot.quadrivium.dk/pipewind-organ-blowers/
Garnet Willis | Explanation - Pressure and Volume
The pipes we have we will want to be able to push them too hard and or not hard enough when we experiment with sound created on the edges of their abilities. All of this becomes the benefit of  having the bellows. Pressure wise....One PSI equals approx 28 inches on a water column. Five inches on a water column equals about .18 PSI. it is usual to find flute pipes running on three or four inches while reeds might require fifteen inches or so. do we want to use reed pipes?... are there some over at that church that we can pilfer?.... nasty sounding things to my mind!!! Volume -wise.... it takes about 1,000 cubic feet per minute at that pressure to sustain a big chord at full blast c catherdral organ with big honkin bass pipes.... if we decide to use very large pipes we will simply have to limit the number being sounded at once... and the duration of that sounding . so that the bellows does not drain its air supply.  With the higher static pressure fans we see online (some may be too high) we could build an automatic switch that turns the blower off when the bellows is full and/or a static pressure regulator via a releasing flap that is weighted and opens when a certain pressure is exceeded.... that way we have wind to spare if we need lots but will need to add extra stuff to manage the extra pressure.. and larger higher pressure also likely means noisier. As long as the blower exceeds a certain number of inches of water static pressure spec, we are good -- the smaller blowers will take more time to fill the bellows BUT they "may" be quieter....   but in the case of the link I sent you  eight inches of static pressure is good... 12 to 16 inches may be too high "POP!" these are all possibilities.  my inflatable organ runs on fans that were lower pressure (2.5") than is usual this was intentional so to keep the system quiet - as fans are inside the organ... not far away in another room. less turbulance=less noise.. that said I had to redesign the pipes for lower pressure - and did this via a big effing complicated spreadsheet to calculate the new dimensions. SO on that system, the fan simply cavitates when the airchest is full and it is the cavitation pressure that I used to design the pipe dimensions.  With our system, we want to explore pressure more widely, and will need more volume to drive the large pipes.  

Important Contact Info

Organ Parts and repair

Blowers

https://xpower.com/product-category/inflatable-blowers/high-static-pressure-blowers/