Kultivate Arts

Lorin Tone is the name of a new aural installation, open through to the end of 2016, intended to to demonstrate the wide variety of uses in-world sounds can be put to within Second Life. The installation takes it name from the master of ambient sound, Lorin Tone, who shares the environment with Nance Clowes “and others” (one of whom I assume could be Lorin’s partner, Judi Newall).For those who travel the grid extensively with local sound enabled, this might sound a “well, duh!”, kind of idea: many region designers spend a good deal of time adding a soundscape to their environment, so we’re accustomed to hearing them every day (although that in itself can cause us to “tune them out”).

But sounds are also more than just ambient background; they can be used in a wide variety of ways to add atmosphere to an environment, both passively and actively, triggered or experienced in a wide variety of ways – touch, collision, proximity, and so on.So it is that this installation offers a series of individual parcels (denoted by the stone paths running between them) in which various sound scape can be experienced. The layout might not be that visually appealing, but a slow exploration through it will reveal how aurally rich they are, and the cornucopia of sound options available for in-world use. There are things to touch, walk past and through; to step on, play, bounce across and ride…

Source: Tone and ambience in Second Life | Inara Pey: Living in a Modem World