‘Signals’

BLOCK frees you from interruptions and distractions by blocking all incoming and outgoing signals from your smartphone. Which is all invisible to the human eye. We feel that this invisibility makes the problem more abstract. That’s why we’ve asked 3D designer Tim van der Wiel and audio designers KLOAQ to explore and visualise this invisibility. Check out the results here…

Tim van der Wiel (3D designer): “In my head, the representation of phone signals had to be ‘strange and disturbing’ because it’s constantly present in our lives. Although some people seem to actually feel these signals, they’re still invisible to all. I chose to experiment with ‘generative procedural animation’ based on particles and I let many iterations of simulations appear from a BLOCK. I’m very happy with my final interpretations and how they fuse with KLOAQ’s audio design.”

KLOAQ (audio designers): “Apart from the amazing challenge to give sound to inaudible energies, we very much feel the social and societal view-point of ‘disconnecting’ every once in a while. Our first inspiration came after viewing the amazing 3D animations created by our friend Tim van der Wiel. And the first design resembled a web of signals, so we designed a digital transmission where voices and connections morph into a chaotic noise that is unleashed when opening the BLOCK. In the second animation the data resembled chat balloons, so we started by creating a sound texture from a single type sound on your phone, and converted it into a liquid goo of information. And last we created a digital river of video and game sounds represented by tiny electric screens in the animation.”