Aeolus

The Aeolus Outreach Programme seeks to inspire curiosity and wonder about sound and Acoustics, inspiring further interest in the diverse discipline through the exploration of an otherworldly work of art.

Aeolus is an investigation into acoustics, wind, architecture and light. It is an acoustic and optical pavilion designed to make audible the silent shifting patterns of the wind and to visually amplify the ever changing sky.

Educational Outreach

An extensive programme of creative engineering workshops has been funded and is in place to follow the artwork. Go to www.aeolus-outreach.com for more information. Download this DIY Toolkit made for schools is available, created through educational workshops carried out so far, provides fun activities for children such as constructing an aeolian harp, listening to coat-hanger sounds, making a tin-can telephone or creating a bullroarer with cheap materials such as buckets, wooden pegs, tins, coat-hangers, or fishing line.

Listening to the landscape of wind.

Aeolus is designed to resonate and sing with the wind without any electrical power or amplification. Aeolus will sonify the three dimensional landscape of wind, using a web of Aeolian harp strings. Almost like cats' whiskers sensitive to the slightest touch, the stings register the shifting landscape of wind around the artwork will be heard by visitors. The public will be able to visualise this shifting wind map by interpreting the sound around them.

Beneath the arch a viewer can look out through a field of 310 internally polished stainless steel tubes simultaneously, each of which draws the landscape of light through the structure whilst humming at a series of low frequencies. These light pipes act to frame, invert and magnify the landscape around the pavilion enabling the viewer to contemplate an ever changing landscape of light. As the clouds and sun move across the sky throughout the day, the visual experience for the public will dramatically alter minute by minute, hour by hour.

Aeolus was inspired by Luke Jerram's research trip to Iran in 2007 where he explored the mosques of Isfahan and interviewed a Qanat desert well digger about his life. The well digger spoke of the wells singing in the wind which led Jerram to investigate the acoustics of architecture and create this new work.

Primary Funding Partners and Sponsors

With major grants from ACE and EPRSC, Outokumpu have provided stainless steel. We are working with the acoustic engineering departments at the University of Southampton (ISVR) and University of Salford.

Aeolus outreach

A range of workshops, activities, interactive pages and learning materials in the Aeolus Outreach website