Phonating Hand Dryers: exploits in product and environmental acoustics, and aural diverse composition and co-composition

This chapter reflects on the salient issues for aural diversity from an acoustic and environmental noise study of high-speed hand dryers in public and workplace toilets carried out between 2011 and 2014. The project included sound power tests of a wide range of hand dryers on the market in an anechoic chamber, followed up by in-situ sound pressure measurements of hand dryers in unoccupied toilets, to learn how the room acoustics contributes to the sound levels. The study followed up with a social survey and found grievances among the following groups – visually impaired, hearing aid users, Alzheimer’s disease, Ménière’s disease, PTSD, cerebral palsy, and, most significantly, hyperacusis sufferers and autistic people with hyperacute hearing. This led to a period of artistic activism, during which Drever attempted to communicate and address the findings through appropriate aural diverse compositional practice informed by Tomatis’ concept of audio-phonation.