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Mark Dore, Editor in Chief
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Sound installation compiles
noises from urban dramas
By Jack Riewe
The sounds of Hurricane Katrina,
the images of Carnival, the missile
crisis in Havana — these and more are
combined in a sound installation on
campus.
Music lecturer Leonardo Cardoso
and associate professor of performance
studies Jeff Morris have created “Af
fective Oscillations,” a sound instal
lation of urban dramas that compares
and contrasts noises from big events in
metropolitan areas.
Cardoso, artistic director for the in
stallation, said “Affective Oscillations”
is a cycle of sounds played through
speakers and paired with visuals pro
jected on a screen in front of the room.
The sounds and images depict scenes
from five cities — New York, Rio de
Janeiro, New Orleans, Buenos Aires
and Havana.
. “The sound installation is a collec
tion of soundscapes, meaning sounds
as they are apart of a specific environ
ment,” Cardoso said. “This sound in
stallation is the acoustics in environ
mental sounds in five different cities.”
After Cardoso came to Morris with
the idea of the sound installation, they
started brainstorming on how the
project should look, sound and change
over time. Morris, programmer and
designer of the installation, does inter
active media work.
Each city has two scenes depicted
— one of celebration and one of cri
sis. Cardoso said both types of events
represent how urban spaces, and the
residents, create an identity.
"Art is most impactful
when it creates an
environment that makes
it likely for your unique
ideas to occur in your
own head. Our goal is
to create a compelling
artistic experience and
to provide enough
stimuli so that those
ideas can adapt in each
person's imagination."
Jeff Morris, associate professor of
performance studies
“So for instance, for New York
City, a moment of celebration we
chose was the Thanksgiving Parade,
because it’s something that attracts
people and showcases New York City
during a specific time period,” Car
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Allison Bradshaw —THE BATTALION
m SYLVAN
Sponsored by Tfee La Porte - Baysliore Chamber of Commerce
BBth Annual
John Reynolds presented "Agile Architectures and Their Evaluations" at the
second panel on future developments of testbeds.
Workshop addresses
power grid challenges
SPACE CiTt COWBOYS CODTIOHRSON
Saturday. April 25-U^ie PM Friday. April 24-18-11:30 PM
Friday, April 24 & Saturday, April $5
Sylvan Beach Park * La Porte, TX
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By Srinivas Harshal
Nw While few dispute the idea that aging
U.S. power grids are overburdened,
the solution is less clear.
To shed light on the matter, more than
100 students, faculty, researchers and in
dustrial experts from various disciplines
gathered at Texas A&M Tuesday for the
third annual TEES Smart Grid Work
shop. Through expert presentations and
student research displays, attendees fo
cused on ways to evaluate possible solu
tions for the complex problems associated
with America’s power grid.
The U.S. power grid is a complex net
work made up of power plants, transmis
sion lines and transformers, which con
vert and distribute power into homes.
Managing this network in a more efficient
way through modern infrastructure and
data analytics is the goal of a “smart grid”
— a type of electrical grid that has been
adopted in many places in Texas.
Mladen Kezunovic, electrical engi
neering professor and director of the
TEES Smart Grid Center, said because
the installation of new grid infrastructure
is costly and risky, solutions such as smart
grids need to be thoroughly evaluated be
forehand.
“We have a host of new technologies
such as microgrids, electric vehicles, solar
and wind power penetrating our age-old
system and we need to assess their devel
opment cycles between their initial re
search stage and commercialization,” Ke
zunovic said. “Evaluating the benefits and
performance as early as possible is the key
to sustainable solutions. As such, there’s
a lot of hype with disruptive technology
such as the smart grid but a lot of the solu
tions don’t make it to the market.”
One key element to a smart grid is the
installation of smart meters in homes and
businesses. More than 50 million smart
meters have now been installed across the
country, replacing traditional meters to
relay information about both supply and
demand between producers and consum
ers. With this data, power plants and dis
tributors are able to respond to periods of
peak demand.
“Our systems have become more and
more intelligent over time with such
data,” said Kenneth Mercado, senior vice
president for CenterPoint Energy.
Mercado, who was one of the keynote
speakers at the event, said CenterPoint
Energy was able to benefit from smart
grid technologies, which allow the com
pany to reduce supply when less power is
needed and quickly ramp up generation
when peak periods approach.
“Our grid is being digitized and the en
gineering responsibilities have changed,”
Mercado said. “The proactive and predic
tive actions can now be taken with smart
grid technologies.”
Mercado said smart grid technology
“proves indispensable” in times of natural
disaster, but its benefit was also exempli
fied by an incident in 2013. Mercado
cited a Friday in 2013 when electricity
supply was cut off at 9:33 p.m. for more
than 70,000 residents in Cypress, Texas.
“Thanks to smart grid technology the
fault was isolated, supply re-routed and
electricity restored within time for the 10
p.m. news,” Mercado said.
Students also made poster presenta
tions displaying their smart grid-related
research on campus.
■ Jena Floyd —THE BATTALION
doso said. “It’s an opportunity to un
derstand some of the traditions that are
related to that place. For the crisis we
chose 9/11 because again, that event
caused kind of a mpture to the public,
to the spatial fabric arid to the everyday
life in the city.”
Cardoso said he recorded some of
the sounds, while others were collect
ed from websites such as Soundcloud
or YouTube.
Morris said the installation inter
ested him because he looks for ways
to create forms of art with multimedia.
“Art is most impactful when it cre
ates an environment that makes it
likely for your unique ideas to occur
in your own head,” Morris said. “Our
goal is to create a compelling artistic
experience and to provide enough
stimuli so that those ideas can adapt in
each person’s imagination.”
English freshman Alexandra Huerta
came to the installation and said she
thought it was a neat experience.
“I thought it was interesting, I didn’t
really know what it was actually going
to be about,” Huerta said. “I walked in
and he didn’t even explain anything,
he just started playing the music and
the pictures and it was all rushed. It
actually kind of made me feel like I was
in the environment. ”
The installation is available from
5:30-7:30 p.m. weekdays through
May 1 in LAAH 109.
MUSTER CONTINUED
* Vishal Kaushal, CMS* of
2013, tuned into his com
munity’s Muster from Dallas,
despite commitments at work.
“[Muster] conflicted with
my work schedule, but this
morning I got a message that
one of my former underclass
men had passed away,” Kaush
al said. “It made me realize that
I needed to make this tradition
a priority. It helps to have peo
ple by your side when some
one important to you passes
away.”
Biomedical sciences sopho
more Mark Griffin attended
Muster to answer “here” for
his friend and fellow Corps
of Cadets member, Thomas
Bratcher, Class of 2017.
“Hearing Thomas [Bratch
er’s] name at Muster was not
only emotional, but it was also
closure,” Griffin said. “Hear
ing all the things said at Muster
and knowing what it repre
sents made me realize this was ,
my last goodbye to Thomas.
Not only will he continue to
live on in my memory but
through Muster, he will always
be a part of the Aggie family.”
U.S. Rep. and Muster
speaker Will Hurd, Class of
1999, acted as student body
president his senior year and
led the A&M community
through the Bonfire Collapse,
one of the most trying times in
the university’s history.
“The 12 students we lost in
Bonfire were among the many
names called at that year’s
Muster,” Hurd said. “Despite
seeing tradition being trans
formed into tragedy, it was in
spiring to see the Aggie spirit
manifest itself in the acts of
compassion and selflessness.”
There’s no better way to
think about what each of us
should be doing in our own
lives than to reflect on the lives
of those who are no longer
with us, Hurd said.
Finance sophomore Travis
McClendon said Muster is not
about mourning — it’s about
celebrating those who not only
passed, but also those who are
here now.
“Even though you were
here today for people you
may not know, down the hue,
people you don’t know will be
there for you,” McClendon
said. “And that’s really some
thing special. This tradition
is part of the reason I chose
A&M.”