(To listen to the wind machine discussed in this article, open this link in an additional window before reading.)

Introduction¹

The wind moves us, disrupting or pushing, but it also voices its presence—whispering, whistling, or roaring. Within theaters, particularly from the nineteenth century onwards, the wind was given voice by way of a sound effect; a mechanism designed specifically to create an impression in the audience that the wind was blowing.² In response to Griffero’s characterisation of wind as a quasi-thing, something we encounter through the felt body, this essay explores this sound effect—the theater wind machine—and the peculiar sensory experience of its performance.³ I research historical theater sound effects with a focus on sound as the result of hand movement—how sound can be performed by the hand, and how that performance can make meaning for the performer. In the case of the theater wind machine, the performer holds a crank handle and turns it to activate the sound of the wind. This is a sonic interaction. The performer controls a sound through their own movement, while simultaneously perceiving sonic, tactile, and kinaesthetic information from the result of this movement. This multisensory feedback in turn helps to inform further action and adjustment during the process of performing the sound.⁴ The study of sonic interactivity is part of the field of embodied interaction, which broadly attempts to create perceptually meaningful encounters with digital technology. Research methods include quantitative user studies, speculative design artefacts and artistic practice. Researchers also draw on the phenomenological approach in the close examination of experiences with objects and technologies.⁵ I apply these methods to a historical context with the aim of expanding our understanding of the experience of sound effects performance beyond the scant information contained in historical texts.

The potential of sonic interactivity has so far rested on the notion that the real-world multisensory feedback loop of human perception and sensorimotor activity is natural and can be parsed into stable categories. In this formulation, the possibility of grasping a sound in performance is a simple matter of achieving a correspondence between modalities: action (e.g., turn) and resulting sound (e.g., swish), for example.⁶ The performer can only operate sound according to expected parameters; the resulting sound somehow makes sense as the result of a specific action. As such, much of what we already understand about sound and interactivity is based on the stable and knowable objects of traditional Western ontology that Griffero describes.⁷ There is little room for the immaterial or the illusory in the consideration of perception and meaning in sound performance. However, as I will argue here, the theater wind machine troubles this model.

The theater wind machine design likely originated in nineteenth-century France, with the earliest description of its workings published by artist and theater designer Jean-Pierre Moynet in 1874.⁸ Weather was an important part of theater narratives in establishing a mood for the audience, particularly in foreshadowing conflict or cosmic imbalance.⁹ As a way of performing a weather sound, the wind machine invites us to reckon with atmosphere, or the sphere of felt bodily presence, in the context of sonic interactivity.¹⁰ Theater practitioners were concerned with the experiences of their audiences and how the effects, whether visual or sonic, would make them feel.¹¹ As a sound effect, the wind machine also draws affect into sound performance, inviting us to reckon with the experience of intensities or forces beyond conscious knowing.¹²

My aim here is to explore the possibility of grasping the wind as sound, and so I explore the theater wind machine with the aim of revealing the experience of the sound performer themselves, rather than the theater audience. We begin in the nineteenth century before the publication of Moynet’s theatrical manual, with a visual and textual depiction of the wind as the result of an enormous bellows to examine action and sound as solid and stable things, introducing how the wind troubles the ontology of sonic interactivity. We will then move to the theater wind machine itself as a sonic depiction of the wind, exploring the affective nature of its voice in historical sources and how practitioners worked to produce it. Finally, my own reflections on performing sound with the wind machine expand on its ability to activate an atmosphere and produce an affect in the performer themselves.

Sonic Affordances

Sonic interactions in everyday life tend to involve simple actions and stable sonic responses. We might pluck a string, tap on a computer keyboard, or push a door open for example. The corresponding twang, click or swish caused by our hand movements has a beginning, middle and end. Each sound rises and falls with the action we perform and the materials we activate. There is so far no definitive account of how a hand-operated mechanism capable of capturing the sound of the wind was first imagined. However, here I consider a nineteenth-century illustration and text that imagines the wind being produced by a simple mechanism. It raises the possibility that the sound of the wind might be performed by the hands. Let us consider this depiction as a potential sonic interaction.

Hahblle, one of the godlike travellers in J.J. Grandville’s Une Autre Monde (Another World) (1844), has been charged with watching the world from the skies and recording his observations.¹³ He rides a continually shifting current of air in a balloon, and after some time finally encounters the source of these gusts:

“Between two peaks, a huge bellows spread its monstrous belly. Just as he was wondering what the use of such a fan could be, a low roar was heard… the city was turned upside down in less than a second. Signs, fireplaces, hats, sleeves, parasols, umbrellas, wigs, everything was removed. No one could stand in the streets.” ¹⁴

Grandville’s hurricane bellows imagines the wind as the result of a simple mechanism. (Figure 1) A bellows consists of a flexible pleated bag that creates a chamber of air which feeds a single nozzle.¹⁵ The chamber is enclosed on two sides by flat boards. To operate the bellows and produce a blast of air from the nozzle, the boards must be pulled apart, allowing air to rush into the bag and fill it. As the boards are compressed together, air will be expelled from the nozzle. Grandville’s illustration invites us to consider the possibility of performing the sound of the wind one gust at a time. Lung-like, the monstrous device must draw breath before producing each destructive blast of air. This is evident from the text—Hahblle sees the bellows inflate before he hears the sound of wind and witnesses its impact on the city.

Setting this huge airborne version aside for a moment, if this was a handheld fireside bellows, Hahblle could use it himself as follows.¹⁶ Each of the flat boards would incorporate a handle, offering him an opportunity for action—a perceivable affordance of holding and moving (pull or push). Hahblle could hold a handle in each hand and pull them apart to allow air to rush into the bag and fill it. The two handles could then be pushed together. The air filling the bag would resist the motion of Hahblle’s hands as he performed this pushing motion. As long as the resistance could be successfully overcome, the air would be expelled from the nozzle. By listening to the sound his actions made—a process known as ergoaudition¹⁷ —and feeling the changes in the resistance against his hands, Hahblle could learn over time to adjust his movement to perform a blast of air of a particular strength or duration, building up a tacit and embodied knowledge of how to perform with the bellows to make sound.¹⁸ This embodied experience of performing with the bellows would firmly associate its sound to the pulling and pushing action in Hahblle’s mind. Human auditory perception is intimately linked with action, so much so that when sounds are heard without seeing the actions that caused them, they are still described in terms of bodily action.¹⁹ Everyday sounds let us know that something has happened in our immediate environment—they are perceived as events.²⁰ If Hahblle heard the fireside bellows without seeing it, he would first recognise the sound as the movement of the bellows rather than focusing on the acoustical qualities of the blast of air—its particular pitch, for example.

When Hahblle first encounters the hurricane bellows, however, he does not immediately associate it with the wind’s activity.²¹ The wind itself has not evoked a particular push/pull action, or indeed a bellows mechanism, for Hahblle prior to this. The wind, therefore, does not present a specific sonic affordance—an opportunity for action to create its sound—for Hahblle.²² The visual appearance of the mechanism and its push/pull affordance does not suggest a connection to the sound of the wind either. Despite the low roar that emanates from the hurricane bellows, it has not created a conceptual link, or a meaningful correspondence, between action and sound.²³ Grandville is perhaps, in keeping with Une Autre Monde’s focus on transformations and metamorphoses, more focused on the destructive ability of the column of air produced by this monstrous bellows than the sound that it makes. He has chosen it for its ability to upend structures abruptly rather than its ability to voice the wind according to the design of its mechanism.

The soft shifting currents of air that Hahblle rides prior to his encounter seem distinct and distant from the more forceful voice of the bellows. Une Autre Monde, despite its vivid depiction, has not fully tied the wind to a specific cause. As such, the wind remains quasi-thingly, an atmospheric influence on the felt bodily experience.²⁴ What kind of sound does a real fireside bellows make? I would describe its expulsion of air as something akin to huffing.²⁵ Perhaps if Hahblle had heard this huffing rather than a low roar, he would have immediately understood it as the action of a bellows. We have still not arrived at a place where a simple hand-operated mechanism can produce the sound of the wind. Let us now move to consider the theater wind machine itself.

A machine to imitate the wind

When there are several kinds of machine in use to imitate the sound of wind, but this is the most usual: a solid framework supports the axle of a cylinder resting upon two trunnions. The cylinder is made up of individual sections each of which in cross-section looks like the tooth of a cog wheel, and form projections on the surface of the cylinder. Generally, there are between fifteen and twenty of these ridges fastened to the turning cylinder. Strong silk fabric on top of the frame runs over the cylinder and small bolts, which can be tightened as required, allow it to be tensioned. When the handle of the cylinder is turned, the friction of the silk over the ridges produces a continuous sound exactly like that of wind whistling in chimneys or corridors.
— Christopher M. Baugh and David Wilmore ²⁶

Moynet’s L'Envers du Théâtre first describes the theater wind machine in 1874 (Figure 2).²⁷ Despite the availability of other methods, the wooden cylinder and axle design proves so enduring that it is still in use in theaters by 1950.²⁸ This machine invites us to grasp its crank handle and directly perform the wind as sound.

When the wheel is turned the wind is heard to roar.²⁹

The theatrical manuals, writings and reviews I have gathered in the course of my research do not discuss the experience of performing with the wind machine in any detail. Most historical sources instead give a simple performance instruction.³⁰ We should turn the wooden cylinder to activate the wind.³¹ It is important to get this turning right, however, in order to produce the sound effect. The speed of this turning action is linked to the quality of the wind. Changes in speed will vary volume and pitch³² or shift the force of the gale.³³ Faster speeds will produce a higher note.³⁴ With practice, the performer can unlock many winds from the same machine.³⁵ How precisely the machine is designed to facilitate this performability is not explained, but it is clear that a repeated action (turning) somehow can result in a shifting and variable sound (winds), and that the skill of the player can determine the success of the sound effect.³⁶To develop skill in sound effects performance, the player must rehearse to develop the right feel.³⁷

How the sound of the wind might feel to the performer themselves is not described. While there is a broad consensus on the repetitious-yet-varying action required, practitioners do not agree on the sound the wind makes. The construction of the wind machine mechanism is described in a literal way in historical sources, but the description of its sound is much more poetic, and changes with each practitioner. What we might be grasping with this crank handle seems infinitely variable. When the theater wind machine is not described as producing a wind, its wind is described as a voice—whistling, howling, roaring, sighing, shrieking, or moaning.³⁸ This voice is not just a summoned wind, although it is said to be indistinguishable from the sound of the wind in the real world.³⁹ It is also an affective element of the onstage drama. Winds are requested by directors not in terms of the length and height of the wooden cylinder of the machine itself, but in terms of their dramatic potential:

The gale I want, he says, must have teeth, or how is the hero to be rescued in them? I want roaring and pelting and smashing and clashing. None of your land zephyrs for me. I must hear the dolphin howl and the shark shriek!⁴⁰

This evocative description gives us a sense of the range of the wind machine’s sounds, from the softness of the zephyr to the gale with teeth. This description from Max De Nansouty in 1909 goes further, linking the materials used to build the wind machine to its affective potential and indeed its contribution to the creation of an atmosphere within the theater:

A strong silken stuff is stretched like a bridge over the cylinder and tightened tightly against it by means of small bolts. By rapidly rotating the cylinder on its axis by means of a crank, instead of the friendly "froufrou" traditional silk, we achieve a plaintive creak, which imitates, to give shivers, the sound of the wind which engulfs itself in the vast chimneys of the old manor in ruin, in the sinister corridors of the castle dilapidated and populated by specters, or in the snowy plain on the white shroud of which the fugitives are dying.⁴¹

The wind machine’s sound is explicitly tied to the felt body here, its purpose to give shivers as part of the drama. The sound manifests a specific affect.⁴² This is used in the invocation of specific scenes, such as that of the bleak and snowy plain. Böhme highlights the aesthetic practice of scenography as one which creates atmospheres.⁴³ In this example, mood and place are communicated to the felt body through the wind sound. The felt body can be present in the snowy plain as a result.

The quasi-thingly nature of the wind and its varying intensities therefore permeates its theater sound effect.⁴⁴ The affective nature of its sound means the design first described by Moynet is continually adapted over time. There seem to be as many different implementations of the principle of the theater wind machine as there are historical examples. The cloth is fixed on only one side of the machine.⁴⁵ Canvas is chosen as the cloth.⁴⁶ The canvas is made wet.⁴⁷ Silk is sometimes used instead of canvas.⁴⁸The cloth is augmented with a layer of rosin, stretched violin strings and a foot pedal to adjust its tension.⁴⁹ Each new adjustment attempts to capture the effect of wind as a sound of a particular intensity or quality. As in Böhme’s discussion of aesthetic work, the object (the wind machine itself) is worked on in order to make a particular atmosphere.⁵⁰ Having considered the aesthetic potential of the wind machine in its theatrical context, we will now explore the sensory experience of its performance.

Performing the sound of the wind

I will now explore my experience of performing the wind as sound. Standing in front of the theater wind machine, I hold the crank handle and turn it to move the wooden slats against the rough canvas cloth. (Figure 3) This is the sonic interaction that creates the sound. The cloth is fixed to the machine’s frame on one side, and so the handle can only be rotated in a clockwise direction. If it is rotated anticlockwise, the cloth will be pulled off the cylinder. Although the size of the machine gives the impression of its being very heavy to move (it is at my chest height), the wooden cylinder turns much more easily on its axle than I initially expected. I stand still during play, focusing my movement through my right hand and arm. I often brace my left foot against the machine’s frame for a more comfortable standing position. The frame is mounted on wheels, allowing for easy positioning of the machine, but I activate their brakes during play so that the machine stands still.

The wooden part of the crank handle is smooth to the touch, satisfyingly tactile, and shaped to fit the hand well. It also spins freely on its own metal shaft. This is a repurposed mechanical meat grinder handle, designed for many repeated rotations. As I turn the crank handle, the wooden part also turns on its shaft, changing the position of my hand and engaging my wrist and arm in the turning movement. The wooden part of the handle also responds to my grip and movement with a very slight side-to-side motion of its own back and forth across its shaft. This gives a constant sensation of responsive wobbling in my hand. The turning movement to rotate the wooden cylinder requires more effort on my part during the first half (from bottom to top), as I must push upwards against the tight side of the cloth. The second half of the movement (from top to bottom) requires less effort, as the cylinder is moving against the freely hanging and looser side of the cloth and its weight assists the downward motion. As I turn the crank handle through each rotation, I experience a transition between more and less resistance to my motion. This creates a feeling of alternating weight—more, then less—being lifted by my wrist and arm as I adjust my position back and forth during one continuous movement. This shifting sensation of weight and effort couples to the responsive wobbling under my hand from the wooden handle. The movement of my arm, wrist and hand are all coupled directly to the motion of the crank handle and cylinder. When I turn the crank handle, it immediately activates the wind machine to produce some sound. A single turn does not produce the sound of the wind, however. The wooden slats rub smoothly against the rough cloth, creating a slow, breathy swish akin to a single gust or exhalation. The wind machine becomes the wind in the playing, just as the historical sources advise.

To summon the sound of the wind, the wooden cylinder must be kept in motion with the crank handle. This experience is quite different to completing a single turn. The beginning of the performance requires some additional effort to set the cylinder in motion and overcome the resistance of the tight side of the cloth. But once the cylinder is already moving, there is a lessening of the feeling of weight through the crank handle in my hand. The wind machine suddenly begins to feel lighter and easier to rotate. This is particularly pronounced at higher speeds of rotation when the cylinder can spin so quickly on its axle that my hand cannot keep up with its motion. As the movement of the wooden cylinder accelerates, it feels like the machine is moving ahead of my hand. At those times, I instinctively change my performance approach and focus on resisting the motion of the cylinder, slowing it down with the crank handle rather than trying to drive it forward. This strange experience of the cylinder feeling lighter with more turning effort means that it can store rotational energy input to it with the crank handle. The wooden cylinder is acting like a flywheel. Like a potter’s wheel or toy fidget spinner, the wind machine can be kept in motion with an occasional twist of the crank handle once it has reached a certain speed. It responds to the energy of the movement it receives. It requires more effort to play at slow and regular speeds. During continuous play, as I orient my hand, wrist, and arm when turning, and feel the response of the machine to my motion, I have the sensation of continually stirring a very viscous liquid in an almost figure-8 motion. This stirring feeling very naturally corresponds to the sound of the wind.

Listening to the wind machine while playing it is a unique experience. Although I understand that the sound is coming from the wooden structure and its cloth, and I can see the slats turning and the cloth undulating against them in response, what I hear is the wind rather than an imitation of it, or indeed the materials making its sound. This begins as a single swish or gust that transitions into a repetitive or machine-like wind—something akin to the rotary blades of a wind turbine—before I experience something of an opening out as the wind seems to expand to fill the space I am playing in. It feels like there is more air in the room. The space feels cooler and somehow larger, and the sound, now softly whistling with a shifting pitch, feels like it is coming from somewhere further away rather than from the movement of my own hand. In these moments, the sound provokes a recognition in me, and seems to envelop me, transporting me to a new felt space.⁵¹ The sound summons a cold, expansive and airy atmosphere. This does not necessarily provoke shivers as in De Nansouty’s description, but I do experience a felt bodily tension akin to being outside when the weather turns cold, and I realise I should have brought a coat.⁵²

With time and practice, I have learned to subtly shift the speed of my turning motion to produce this sound, and move to this experience, more readily. While there is technique here, it is difficult to precisely define. The performance feels more like a collaboration with the wind machine. I move, and it responds by resisting my motion in one way or another. It asks me to move slightly differently on the next turn. We are two bodies acting upon one another.⁵³ I am guided throughout this back and forth by the sound of the wind, which binds to my movement and makes me feel like I am not constrained to turn a handle clockwise at all. I am instead tracing out the shape of the windy atmosphere as it opens out, extending my felt body. The handle itself seems to melt away under my hand. There is a letting go here that resonates with Griffero’s pathic aesthetics, in that I do not react critically when performing, but instead my felt body is intruded upon by the motion of the wind machine and the quality of its sound. I merely experience and respond to these intensities.⁵⁴ I am a means of the wind happening, but its summoning is not entirely within my control. As the sound effect becomes more real for me, so my performance becomes more affective. To perform the wind as a sound effect, I must listen not to the mechanical interaction of the wood and cloth as I play, but to the wind itself according to my own experience. This suggests that for the theater wind machine to create the right impression in an audience, it must also do so in the performer themselves.

Conclusion

The wind and its quasi-thingly nature infuse the solid, repeatable, and mechanical as a consequence of its capture as a sound effect in the nineteenth century. While simple mechanisms are not necessarily capable of this kind of capture, as in the case of Grandville’s monstrous bellows,⁵⁵ the flywheel at the heart of the wind machine’s design connects the performer to the forces and intensities of the wind itself. Grasping its handle and performing its sound expands the potential of the hand beyond simple and direct links between action and sound, and instead extends our senses outward towards the intangible and the atmospheric. As an aesthetic object that produces a particular affect or atmosphere, the theater wind machine is adjusted with each version of its design, and the sound it produces is specific to the requirements of each practitioner—including mine. The drum and silk, carefully calibrated, voices many winds.

The wind machine itself in turn challenges the quasi-thingly nature of the wind, capturing its sound and thereby reducing it to a single cause.⁵⁶ However, during performance its sound has the potential to change how the machine’s solidity and physicality is experienced, as its alternately responsive and resistive motion shifts the feeling of its handle in the hand, dissolving its tangibility. In this way the performer may come to understand the wind in an expanded way as an affective rather than environmental phenomenon or come to use its sound to deliberately expand felt bodily presence. Perhaps action and sound are themselves a means of blurring the boundaries of the stable and knowable, a potential way for things to become quasi-things in our experience.