The shape of the sound of the shape of the sound ⋯

Abstract

The concept of a trans-phenomenal artifact arose from a project to digitally fabricate a series of bells, where each bell is shaped by the sound of the previous bell. This paper describes the recursive process developed for fabricating the bells in terms of generic stages. The first bells fabricated with this process raised the question of whether the series would converge to a static attractor, traverse a contour of infinite variation, or diverge to an untenable state. Reflection on these early results encourages further development of the recursive fabrication process, and lays groundwork for a theory of trans-phenomenal artifacts.