common in this world of flickering screens and fluttering cones, have since corroborated this notion and shown that we are indeed all synaesthetes by nature. The concept of light-to-sound synthesis is deeply rooted in the idea of signal processing, both as an expressive technique and as a way of making sense of the world. The early 20th centur y Russian avant-gardists’ theories and experiments stubbornly, perhaps even naively, insisted on treating sound, light and movement on equal terms, but they were acutely aware of the fluidity between the senses and they understood the processual nature of
experience and creativity. It is perhaps no coincidence that contemporar y thinkers on interactive and sonic ar ts such as Steve Goodman and Brian Massumi are still heavily indebted to the work of William James. The intellectuals and ar tists of ‘Generation Z’ were the first, and in some instances the last, to experiment with James’ ideas, experiments which came to an abrupt end during Stalin’s Great Terror of the 1930s, but which are as impor tant and relevant today as they were almost a centur y ago. The Acid House system is a prototypical interpretation of these historic and contemporar y theories of signal processing, spatialized and applied to
an inhabitable experience. However by prioritising ambiguity over clarity, interaction over passivity, dynamism over stillness, and uncer tainty over control, the installation also encourages occupants to become conscious of their own perceptual mechanisms and their malleability, enabling them to play a more creative role in their own perception. By doing this, the installation liberates architecture from a potentially endless and increasingly rapid cycle of obsession and obsolescence.
43