“Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating.” – John Cage.
Lola Mijouin is Stockholm based industrial designer who was born in France where she also first graduated (BA in Product Design). In 2019, she received the MA degree in Industrial Design at Konstfack, University of Arts, Crafts and Design, in Sweden.
She’s currently working as a Design and Production Assistant for the audio manufacturer Teenage Engineering in Stockholm, and together with the sound art collective 1+1=3.
She says she’s interested in ”design for new interactions, experiences and reflections on behaviors”. Through different explorations, she has further developed an interest for invisible aesthetics and particularly for sound, and its effect on human mind and behavior.
Her own instrument is piano, but she’s also a big fan of electronic and experimental music (techno, house, experimental, minimal) as well as jazz, classical, hip-hop, indie and disco.
She likes to build synths and controllers as tools for exploring noise, sound and music within different contexts.
Invisible aesthetics of noise
In May this year Lola Mijouin presented her work The Noise Perceivers – an interactive industrial sound design installation – as her Master Degree Project at Konstfack (degree exhibition) in Stockholm.
Here’s a brief description:
As being the most direct way of engaging with our surroundings, sound envelops us wherever we are, even with our eyes closed.
We bring sound with us everywhere we go.
Desirable and controlled, or unwanted and chaotic, also called “noises”. Being unpleasant and unhealthy, noise has become a real urban issue in our daily environment.
As our modern society is moving faster, the urban soundscape becoming noisier, and our attention taken by technology, we forgot to pay attention to our surrounding world.
By using noise pollution and collaborating with it through an adjustable sound filter, the Noise Perceivers aim to give other qualities, sonorities and colors to sound to contrast our perception of urban noise.
Could we find other qualities otherwise invisible to us, if we approached the world with our sense or hearing ?
Materials : Stainless steel grids, bended birch, 3D printed PLA, concrete, textile.
Technical : Pure Data patch running on Raspberry Pi 3B, microphone, speaker.
Dimensions : 1,80m, 1,50m, 1,30m.
Master Degree Project, Individual Study Plan in Design, Konstfack, Stockholm, 2019.
Other projects
Lola Mijouin has carried out many other projects such as:
Music of the brain: the project aims to create new interactions with our mind, brain and dreams and internally generated perceptions by playing with sound, designing a new experience between the user and his own data; and
Analog speakers made with old records: place your phone inside to amplify the sound of your favorite song. 350 sek, contact me for order.
For more info, check her website:
