These images document an emerging methodology for working with situated sound recordings (a term I prefer to field or environmental recording – perhaps photograph is preferable). I do not consider these digital files to point backwards in time towards some imagined documentation of a contingency typified by excess. They do present some trace of dynamical spectral activity. Such activity I understand to occur both in the frequency domain and also a mythical, haunted domain of lack, loss and absence.
The spectrograms, while found useful when dealing with many recordings of various duration, are of course an abstraction of the sound itself – they do however present, by this very abstraction, a playful means of re-rendering the recorded sound into something other.
This performance, as part of the Opensound project also suggested to me to explore a means of realtime 4 channel spatialisation using FLOSS tools. This performance was my first live experiment using a mashup of TouchOSC/PD/Ableton to move though an recombinatory 4 channel matrix of the spectral abstractions
Keynote Speakers:
R. Murray Schafer, Katharine Norman, Allen S. Weiss.
‘Crossing listening paths’ is the main theme of the Conference of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology, which took place at the Department of Music of the Ionian University in Corfu, Greece from 3-7 of October 2011.
The conference was endorsed by the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology and the Hellenic Society for Acoustic Ecology, was organized and co-sponsored by the Department of Music of the Ionian University and the Electroacoustic Music Research and Applications Laboratory (EPHMEE) of the Ionian University, and was supported by the Computer Music Laboratory of the Department of Music Technology and Acoustics of the Technological and Educational Institute of Crete.
“What moves as a body, returns as a movement of thought.”
“A process set up anywhere, reverberates everywhere.”
“Concepts must be experienced. They are lived.” (Erin Manning and Brian Massumi)
References
Goodman, S (2010) Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect and the Ecology of Fear. MIT
Manning. E (2009) Relationscapes: Movement, Art, Philosophy. MIT
Collins. N (2009) Handmade Electronic Music. Routledge
Treatment
A darkened room is intersected by red lasers – malignant entities, whose role is uncertain. As visitors enter the space, their bodies activate the room installation. At the centre of the space, a black monolith is picked out by a single white spotlight – three sub-bass speakers are incorporated into this dense sculptural form and the room is filled with a thick wash of bass, sub bass and, sub-sub bass frequency. A feeling of dread denseness, at one time a comforting, unifying physicality, at another a malevolent force creating queasiness, claustrophobia and paranoia. The monolith draws visitors towards it like a black hole. Unknown to the them, the space is intersected by invisible lines of directional audio streams. As they move through the space these virtual channels of paranoiac transmissions, sinister and dreadful streams of intrasubjective terror, are seemingly broadcast into their skulls.
Dr Steve Goodman’s recent publication ‘Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect and The Ecology of Fear’ will provide the experimental theoretical backbone of the proposed work. His discourse unifies a number of areas which are of great interest to me at this time: afrofuturism, entertainment-military sound practices, dub culture and urban experience. The curators approached me with a concept of ‘paranoia’, this, and Goodman’s work slotted together to provide me the inspiration for the proposed piece.
Construction by Don McLoglin and Oliver Gentili http://www.coroflot.com/o_gentili
Custom Circuitry by Michael Fisher, Lisa Hall and Ariel Karsh.
Lasers provided by Will Laslett
Thanks to Joel Cahen, Barbara Fuchs, Caroline Christie, Julia @ ASC and Kirk Woolford. Without whom, this would not have been possible. Diolch yn fawr.
Car Audio Power a car amp from the mains.
Skytronic 13.6V, 15A DC Regulated Power Supply
Juce JA 990 3000W Two channel Amp
2 x Audiobahn 15″ Drivers (AW1500V)
Infrasound
“Recent interest in the potential adverse human health effects of infrasound (generally inaudible sound with a frequency of <20 Hz) arises from health concerns expressed by the residents of Kokomo, Indiana. Several individuals in this community have complained of subjective non-specific symptoms including annoyance, sleep disturbance, headaches, and nausea. These symptoms are perceived by the individuals to be due to a low-frequency hum-like noise in and around their homes that is not clearly audible to everyone. Several local, state, and federal agency officials as well as acoustic experts in the academic community and private sector have been called upon to assist in investigating these health complaints. As yet, no firm conclusions have been reached regarding the relationship between this low-frequency noise and the residents’ health complaints."
(http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/htdocs/Chem_Background/ExSumPdf/Infrasound.pdf. Accessed May 2nd 2011)
SZKIZ is a European exchange project for musicians and artists working at the intersection of experimental electronic music, improvisation, acoustic instrumentation and visual art. The project is based on three fundamentals: the exchange of and cooperation between musicians and artists beyond national borders, the transfer of knowledge through the development of a common practice and the social discourse on music and visual art in Europe.
A programme of video works and live sound performances exploring process and structure.
sainswn (wales/england)
new sonic realities based in the dynamics and experience of movement in, between and through place and non-place. entities and environments. trajectories and tracings. mediation and event. themes of immersion, transit, non-human intelligences, infrasonic and ultrasonic forces. the work is entirely based upon notions of listening as composition. reception as construction. perception as the primary generative.
