Below is a short summary and detailed review of this video written by FutureFactual:
Inside Nokia Bell Labs Anechoic Chamber: Sound Absorption, Psychoacoustics and Artist Research
The video takes viewers inside Nokia Bell Labs’ historic anechoic chamber, a room engineered to absorb 99.999% of sound and minimize external reflections. Host Rachel Feldman and scientist-artist Seth Klewitt describe the chamber’s design, its unusual sensory effects, and how it enables demonstrations that reveal how humans perceive sound and space. They also discuss Bell Labs’ foundational technologies and Klewitt’s role as an artist in residence exploring the human factors of sound and digital silence. The conversation blends technical explanation with reflections on art, technology, and the future of embodied computing.
Overview
The video features a tour of Bell Labs' anechoic chamber, a 30 by 30 foot cube designed to absorb virtually all sound reflections. Seth Klewitt explains that the room uses a shell with thick walls and a strategic air gap, plus 4-foot wedge panels arranged in a grid to trap and dissipate sound energy. The measured center position is chosen because distances to all walls are equal, making it scientifically ideal for sound measurements. The chamber’s extreme quietness allows listeners to perceive internal bodily sounds and even faint bone conduction, revealing how we hear in near silence.
What you hear and feel
In this ultra-quiet space, listeners report a pressure against the ears, a sense of a heavy air, and a personal heartbeat and higher-pitched sounds that feel like tinnitus but are simply the body’s own acoustics. The environment suppresses incidental reflections, turning normal sounds into precise signals and enabling unique demonstrations of how sound propagates and is absorbed.
Demonstrations and technology
A key demonstration involves a singer producing a pure tone while turning in a circle. As the speaker rotates, the room absorbs more sound, illustrating how the chamber’s absorbent design eliminates echoes. Klewitt also explains a fundamental acoustic principle: doubling the distance between source and listener halves the perceived loudness, which allows listeners to experience the same voice at progressively lower volumes while preserving timbre and emotional content.
Bell Labs history and creative research
The conversation shifts to Bell Labs’ broader impact, from the birth of pulse code modulation and the transistor to early video synchronization and speech synthesis. They discuss how psychoacoustics and human factors research informed telephony, video, and modern audio technology, emphasizing that digital silence can distort perceived emotion and context in communication.
Artist in residence and the future of sound
Klewitt describes his ongoing work at the intersection of engineering and sensory experience, focusing on the so-called last 10 percent of psychoacoustic research. He explores space, depth, and presence in sound for virtual reality and AI, arguing that computers must understand the world with human-like sense and embodiment to feel intelligent and safe. He also shares stories of bringing large musical ensembles into the chamber for real-time spatial rendering to new spaces.
Closing thoughts
The discussion touches on the chamber’s closing in two years and the lasting impact of hands-on experience for students and researchers. For Klewitt, the chamber has reshaped his practice and transformed how people engage with technology, highlighting the emotional and social dimensions of sound and silence.