Paul De Marinis “Jiffy_pop" (2013)

The piece consists of a number, from 20 - 2000 of small loudspeakers covered with tinfoil, hanging from the ceiling. Each one is powered by a voltage that is interrupted by the mechanism of a needle suspended over the tinfoil. This produces a pop in each one of the speakers that propels the needle back and forth in a somewhat chaotic rhythmic beating, each one being a "different drummer," so to speak.
The sound of each drummer originates from a different place and thus an acoustic field of point sources creates a different acoustic "view" of these discrete impulses depending on the location of the listener and the position of reflecting surfaces in the gallery. More precisely, each point source is made of two sounds - one being the electroacoustic impulse of the speaker, the other being the purely acoustic snare-drum like sound of the needle on the tinfoil. These two sounds radiate in opposite directions, the first from the rear of the speaker, the other from its surface. It is only by their temporal coincidence that the brain unites - or fails to unite - these two sounds.