Robin Buckley (They/Them) Rkss – 20th May 2021
Primarily uses Ableton
Étude élastique – Bernard parmegiani [INA-GRM] (1978)
Describes the music concrette pieces from this as too cold and labels them as modernist.
DJ Tools (2018) when listening to this it can seem as though it is just a bunch of samples that play randomly but as it’s progressing you can see the bigger structure of it and it actually becomes quite plesant to listen to.
“Deconstructed Club” is what Rkss relates to the fashion industry at this time.
At this point big labels became especially conscious about sustainability so you saw this represented in the clothes such as Maison Margiela who had cut up and deconstructed garments.
Where do you want you work to exist in the world?
Make sure you’re interrogating as much as possible.
Your work. your direction. Situate who’s around and where you go.
History of experimental music;
Duran – why is this the experimental music of the 1970s? Who decides? and on what business?
(“acoustic ecology” – Annie Goh)
My question to Rkss is on their opinion of the London galleries.
It’s fascinating the outcomes that people want and how different they can be.
If you want to do a piece in galleries just playing music; the art and gallery people generally factor specific things in a hierarchy of importance:
1 – Visual
… – Other things
6 – Music
Rkss says that if you use a gallery space and can manage to fill it yourself. Great. – This is due to the lack of interest people hold sound and music to within these spaces.
Khyam Allami – 15th April 2021
Pythagoras – Maths of sound
There is a general view that maths in music was a revolutionary subject founded by Greek philosopher Pythagoras, though Khyam says that actually maths has been used in music by eastern countries way before him.
“In order to appreciate something you have to have an idea of it’s form”
Notes in music are limitations
Max for live
The difficulty of something can be the most important force that drives you to succeed subconsciously.
Apotome Studio
Leimma
I asked Khyam Allami how it was that he was hosting his Leimma and Apotome tools publicly and for free on the internet and he told us that he is actually funding the site himself with his own money. I believe this is majorly inspiring. I would very much hope to one day hold my own ideas free for public use in the same way. I think this act of selfless teaching deserves the highest level of respect.
Jana Winderen – 22nd March 2021
Used “giter” in Max to generate visuals out of sound
When using a Hydrophone, don’t hit a rock. Balance it in the water
Bugs can tap to each other to communicate, so can fish.
“Bone conduction”
“wet sound”
Binural – does it have a lag?
Remember what you draw
Local people are generally sound
Check week 22 for digital tools
Band Camp
Gold creates audience
Ultrasound -, bats and rats”
Madison Moore – 7th March 2021
I had already done my research on Madison Moore as I was in this weeks Q and A group.
I signed up to this weeks Q and A group after reading the bio on Madison Moore, given to us on our student padlet. Ball culture and LGBT nightlife is a part of the main reason that I came to study in London and so I want to find out as much about it as possible and to then read that he had worked for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at one of their galas no less, this was an incredible opportunity. Madison spoke about the theory and ideology of being “fabulous” which I know of already though it was interesting to learn further into this subject. Moore performed a DJ set through his lecture and gave readings over songs which gave a good pace to the lecture and kept it lively. At the end there was not enough time to ask all of the questions I had prepared though I did manage to ask this:
When you got to London and to Berlin, how was it that you found these queer spaces and how does that then translate to you work for the Met; how did you get picked up by the fashion industry?
He said he didn’t really know where to go, he found a group of people who were producing events and found the queer spaces that way. He says that for the work in the fashion industry and interviewing Billy Porter at the Met, that it was a result of his work over the past ten years and that he thinks they knew that his book “Fabulous…” was coming out. So that because the 2019 theme was “Camp” that this would be fitting and given that Billy Porter had been playing a main role in the series “Pose” that he would be a good choice in giving a relevant conversation.
This is very interesting to me as it is clear that to pique the interest of the fashion industry you need be seen and invited. This is evident in other areas of the fashion industry such as with Vogue’s Extreme Beauty series on YouTube and Vogue.com. There was a person from a village near my home who was subjected in one of these videos due to their extreme beauty in the way they look.
Daisuke Ishida – 18th February 2021
Thinks about sound and music from aspects of many other artistic disciplines.
Sound in not only musical expression but there is a relation between sound, space and perception, Daisuke looks into the individual properties that make up sound.
“Jacques Ranciere the emancipated spectator” “Allan Kaprow, Happening” “La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, Dream House” “Alvin Lucier, Vespers (1969)” “Cut Piece, Yoko Ono” “Marina Abramovic, the artist is present” “Jeremy Deller”
We shape our tools and therefore our tools shape us. – Daisuke questions whether DAW software is helping us or hindering us.
Sine Wave Orchestra;
Daisuke wants to remove the separation between audience and artist/performer.
The piece has the audience walk around a space with floor to ceiling columns of circuits made of copper wire. In the beginning there is no sound. Though as each person is to walk through the columns they are invited to place a monitor device somewhere on the copper wires.
The idea of “empowering the audience” sees the audience becoming the performer. As each monitor is placed on the wire a sine wave is produced. It would seem that the frequency of sine wave is dependant on the position of the monitor on each circuit.
Sine Wave Orchestra: In the depths. 2017
Daisuke used four waves
There are bass speakers placed in an isolated room and the recording of specific frequencies and their levels of colume have been recorded in lots of different positions in the space. The information of these recordings were then plotted on a 3D grid. Using different colours to show different frequencies.
A wave. 2017
Daisuke took thousands and thousands of YouTube videos and took them frame by frame and mashed them all into a sine wave. He did a similar thing with the visual and blurred it, projecting it in a large scale in a dark space.
Meta data chopped video has brightness which has a number and then you order the brightness in the order of a sine wave. This was managed in “Open Framework” <openframework.cc>.
Research into references from Daisuke Ishida:
- Dream House
“Each performance is woven out of an eternal fabric of silence and sound where the first note emerges from a long silence and after the last sound the performance does not end but merely evanesces back into silence.” – La Monte Young
La Monte Young created the sound aspect and Mariam Zazeela created the visual aspect of this piece; “Dream House”. It is an indoor space which creates an entirely new atmosphere for anyone that would walk inside. The use of many fundamental, single-tone frequencies broadcast on largescale monitors bounce around the room and separate in length and speed creating their own unique paths of resonance. These unseen paths are what is perceived by the ears though with each movement, a new path is entered. This creates a constantly changing sonic experience for the audience as they move through the piece. The piece is open for viewing at specific times each week which lends to the quotation above. The idea of a piece becoming more conceptual than physical is seen throughout of all disciplines. Buyers often buy the rights to the idea of an art piece rather than the physical art.
I can’t help but relate this way of thinking to my own work on 3.3 recurring. I thought of the idea of having my own piece go on forever in time from two perspectives, increasing the pace of rhythm and slowing the pace of rhythm. This came after Dr. Milo Taylor gave the example of a never-ending piece for our first Unit Assignment. The scope of thinking that can be present when introducing non-performance in an art piece is mind-blowingly expansive. You could subject what is within the silence like what is stated above, or simply the silence itself. So in Young and Zazeela’s piece; if what is in the silence is the sound of the outside world, the sound of the building or the sounds coming from the rooms on the floor above, -which is stated is where Young and Zazeela reside- you could experience this piece taking on an expression, personal to the artists/audience involved or on the other hand, should the silence as no-sound be subjected, then it could take the audience out of the piece all together, or express the sense of nothingness, only giving more emphasis to the life of the piece when the sounds begin again.
It makes me wonder about what creates silence; what is it that builds this sense of nothing? Which would then lead me to wonder how I could possibly comprehend the opposite, which is anything and everything. Is it actually true that nothing can only exist due to the absence of something or is it more a case of seeing it from another unknown perspective?
– Reference; (Ed Howard, 17th November 2003, Dream House, Online Article, Viewed 19th February 2021, <www.melafoundation.org/howard_03.htm>).
- Alvin Lucier “No Idea but in things”
A description about Alvin Lucier’s sonic experimental piece Vespers (1968) details the piece. Lucier used devices that produced and responded to sound giving humans the ability to perceive echolocation. People were invited to use the devices whilst blindfolded and navigate from one place to another, sensing the walls, other people and objects that lined their path.
This is fascinating as it is a way in which someone has used technology to give them a heightened sense or completely new sense. This is much like the sound walk my class went on with Jose Macabra. I like this idea because it is proof that technology can be used to allow us to perform activities in ways we might never be able to imagine due to biological limitations. Similarly to the technologies of Virtual Reality, it makes me question what else humans could use to expand our imagination and ways of thinking.
– Reference; (Alvin Lucier, Vespers, 1968, performance art, article viewed 19th February 2021, <www.alvin-lucier-film.com/vespers.html>).
Pedro Oliveira – 11th February 2021
Takes the perspective of a researcher rather than a “sound artist”
How the body perceives frequency and turns into information
Deals with archives
Listening is subject to your cultural and sociological positionality
Brazilian police use sound for racialised violence – topics of writings by Oliveira
2015 and 2016 Brazil School occupations
Since the 1990s linguists have been given the job of figuring out where a person who is seeking asylum is from, if that person has no identification.
Since 2017 Germany has used software in place of the human linguists. This is confusing as the change to software came about after a Caucasian German police officer posed as a refugee and planned to set off terror attacks under the identity of another country. This man managed to pass the language test judged by the human linguists.
This brings up a topic mentioned in a YouTube video by Joel Stern and liquid architecture where it was stated that AI devices such as the ones used on smart phones are not catered for their use by countries without vast economic and technological development. In these cases individuals are having to alter the way they talk in order to be heard by their devices. This is concerning due to the possibility and probability of certain languages and accent becoming extinct.
Pedro Oliveira found individuals from a choir who had a transnational heritage and had them sing and utilise the words spoken by the police following the case of the neo-Nazi police officer.
Marlo De Lara – 4th February 2021
She uses the name “Marloeggplant” to detract gender and with it, it’s preconceived judgement.
She used to isolate herself from her household when there was a lot of family and friends at her home which happened quite often.
She has always tried to manage the sounds and level of sounds around her. She created her persona to separate herself and her work from her social responsibilities, she could be free and independent.
Tusk Festival 2018 – MarloEggplant
– Her piece holds your concentration. She uses sounds that replicate heart beats. Mixing and layering tones to thicken the sound, taking out tones for brief moments of rest. Sporadic sounds of sharp cracking and hissing/scratching are used in a way that confuse. With these she avoids a rhythmic quality, preferring the sense of mayhem that has followed a sense of dull serenity.
I find comfort in the low tones.
Answering my Question;
Cognativ malfunction word salad – speech processing
AGF – 28th January 2021
Born in berlin
Produced more than 30 records
The first piece shown to us sounded very warm with the sound of the short knocks and puffs found when listening to vinyl records. But it had darker elements with sounds like breath which were on short loops and atmospheric sounds.
She describes the piece as “noise music”. AGF became tired of living in the city so she moved to the open rural parts of Finland. She says she likes the view of rural spaces as a utopia. In the town she lives, she turn an old bakery into a media community lab. Here she taught children to make music and work with digital technology. She also told them about Edward Snowdon.
– “Hai Art”
AGF opened sound camps where she invited artists who work with electronics and they set up within sculptures and areas around Europe. She then set up sound camp in south east Asia. She used improvisation in the camps which then developed into some compositions which she and her camp then performed elsewhere.
– “Instrumentality in the Sonic Wild{er}ness“
From the book “Musical Instruments in the 21st Century“
– “radicalmycology.com”
– “Tales of sonic displacement“
From the book “A Sound-Based Artist residency Network“
When AGF has worked by sonifying mushrooms, she has acquired sounds that she would not have found or been able to compose otherwise. With this though she would input electrical audio signals and use the mushrooms as a modulator between the input and output which could pick up interference through the mushrooms. This does confuse me, I have seen videos of people doing this on YouTube though I have always thought it to be quite cruel to electrocute something with result that are not fully understood.
AGF is also a part of “Femalepressure: Network” and has created work which focuses on women throughout history who have been forgotten. AGF worked with journalists to perform research into Frontex which she says is an army created by the European Union which largely unknown by the general public. She has taken the budget figures for this army and subjected it within her pieces.
– Book “Unlearning Imperialism“
– @PoemProducer | Music: AGF
During AGF’s lecture I had prepared the question;
” Is travel to other countries greatly important when working in sound arts and if so is there an ideal route to take?
Do you think there are places that lack the means to push someone’s progress within the industry or with globalisation can people really make work form anywhere?”
These were AGF’s responses:
“First of all sound arts are not in industry.” She says; “there is no “industry”, there’s no money.”
“There was a time when this was possible, so in the beginning of the 2000s it was possible to sell CDs and actually make a living as an independent musician. Then we were only able to tour and make money this way. This is not possible now either, so it’s getting harder.”
“I wouldn’t say that sound art is an industry, it’s an art field and some places have arts funding and that is dependant on the government system. For example the UK have it, Germany have it, Finland have it, the US for example doesn’t have it there is only private funding. So it’s not really an industry, I would not approach it this way but if you want to practice sound art as much as possible and make this your life I think it’s possible.”
“I think that everyone has to find their own path and the less it’s a predetermined path, the better. You have to be creative as much in your path as you have to be creative in your practices and your actual sounds, your music or whatever you are doing”. “It’s all about skills and how somebody needs you to do something or how you can apply yourself to be needed or wanted.”
AGF then goes on to say how work for a sound artist is a simple exchange. At this moment she has twenty different jobs on the go and in all of them there are things she has never done before. She then mentions that everywhere is interesting and there are many places she still wants to go. She then ends with; “you have to go where your heart wants to go.”
I think this is a brilliant answer and gives me a much needed realisation of the work environment we are entering. It brings back thoughts of what I’ve learned in college about working as a freelancer and the gap between practice and work now seems like the same thing rather than two separate activities.
Annea Lockwood – 21st January 2021
Infra Sound / Ultra Sound – Scots Pine Tree
Pressure Waves
“Audio Focal Point”
Solar Oscillations
Stand in rivers with your mics
Magnetosphere
“Stop trying to relate ourselves to other peoples work”
Sei Whale
What you are one with, you cannot harm
Hildergard Westercamp
Notice that you listen with other life forms all around you.
Find yourself sensing how you are not separate from your environment.
Guide Book for home listening
– Look on Sound Cloud for phenomenal sounds
– Contact scientists!
– Record for a long amount of time
– Listen until you feel you are hearing all the sound.
Conjure an image from listening
When recording what might make;
A bad sound:
Equipment noise,
Noise from your person.
A good sound:
Sonic environment around the mic,
when you capture what you’re listening for.
Time Square – Pamela Z
The balance between intuition and theory? – Question by Lucy Railton
– Trust your intuition in work
– Annea starts from an initial sound
– What does this sound need?
– The piece will tell you what it needs.
– Theory can be a retrospective
– Let a sound complete it’s life
Talking about equipment will never get to the heart [of creating and listening]
“Doubt is a common acquaintance, do not worry”
– Annea’s late partner would tell her “it will come back” when she might be doubting herself and she has thus far been successful.
Annea Lockwoods lecture has been the best of the year, she spoke genuinely and in depth about the intuitions and practices that are helpful in sound recording and soundscape creation.
Leslie Gaston-Bird – 17th December 2020
Audio Engineering Society:
From my understanding, the Audio Engineering Society is a hub for the sonic industry. They offer education, work placements and industry connections for the progression and study of sound technologies.
Looking over their “AES Show Spring Convention” the society feels very inclusive as to what is conversed through their network. They call out to people in hopes to have practitioners respond, with subjects of interest or lessons to learn.
I believe that the Audio Engineering Society is something to keep in mind and study for entering the sound industry. I wondered how a society of such stature gained funding:
They have a “store” section on their website where I found multiple audio works, written publications, academic papers, branded merchandise and visual media. On further inspection the AES takes an “annual due” of x amount of dollars depending on the type of membership. This is most likely their main source of income. I see this much like businesses such as the BoF (Business of fashion) whereby they charge a fee for their education and publication services.
– Reference; Audio Engineering Society, 2020, Main Webpage, Viewed on the 15th Nov 2020, <https://www.aes.org>).
– Reference; Audio Engineering Society, 2016, AES Press Release, Viewed on the 15th Nov 2020, <https://www.aes.org/press/?ID=370#:~:text=To%20join%20or%20renew%20an,Student%20Members%20will%20be%20%2450.>).
Yassmin Foster – 4th December 2020
Yassmin Foster’s lecture was very wholesome, it was much more like having a great conversation than being told about a subject. She spoke about her career working with her band “Legs Eleven” and how she likes to create safe spaces for people at her shows and events rather than the typical rigid structure that comes with the common standard of “going out”. She simply wants to be comfortable, listen to loud music and dance. Yassmin also spoke about black culture and brought to my attention that when any black person first moves to the UK, they are forcibly assigned their “race”, as back in countries like the Caribbean and Africa they would not be referred to as black. This then creates a hostility to the environment we live in, how people with black heritage are reminded about the colour of their skin in day-to-day life and so Yassmin sets up these “safe spaces” for people of black heritage to relax and feel more security.
Yassmin told us what she thinks about experiencing sound in a club environment with large monitors and a dance space: “low end frequencies hitting you in the pit of your stomach”, “the treble/mid-range hitting you in your chest” and “the high frequencies, just ever so slightly giving you this awakening”.
I think this is very accurate to my experience with dancing to sound that surrounds you too, I think that it is incredible when an artist can utilize these dynamic categories of expression and response to guide a listener through a narrative using “hooks”, “swing”, “hits” etc. This type of musical control is exampled in a broader sense when DJing. A set list is typically made up of high energy tracks and less intense tracks to break up and create a flow, to entrance the listener for longer periods of time.
A question presented was as follows;
“Can dance work without music? Is it as essential as it seems? or is there a way for a physical portion of performance to exist on it’s own? Would the rhythm that the dancer moves to come from themselves then? And would the sound too, be made by them?” – (Cai Pritchard, 1st Dec 2020).
Yassmin answers with “Dance can absolutely work without music” and then uses the example of seeing someone dance but not being able to hear what they’re dancing to and that this does not mean that they are not dancing. I completely agree with her. A person also has the ability to dance to anything and/or nothing if by the common understanding of it is to mean “Rhythmic movement”. From another perspective dance can be seen as “expressive movement” in which case any movement could be subjected as dance. I think of this in the way that any desire to execute a task is triggered by an emotional response, resulting in it’s expression.
If we also see music from a subjective point of view then any sound can be witnessed as music. The expression that a person is driven by when creating sound whilst dancing only gives more reason to assume that the sound created when dancing, is music. I think this is a beautiful thought.
A question presented was as follows;
“I wondered if you thought that dance and movement may have some sort of spiritual element. I guess that dance can be used as something sacred and deeply intimate, an act of worship, relationship, thanksgiving or prayer. If this is the case, do you think if we are passively coerced, hypnotised or in a trance-like state we could be worshiping something unknowingly.” – (Stuart Peaty, 29th Nov 2020).
Yassmin’s response; “I think all of the above.” She then goes on to say on a personal stance “I think dance and movement is spiritual.” She emphasises the idea and the question of “trance” and what it is or means. She talks about bands or army’s moving in unison and the idea of “togetherness” she then says this: “In moving as one to an electronic beat, is that actually causing stillness? As opposed to movement?”. Never before this lecture had I thought about what causes the euphoric feeling given to us by dance. With music, I assumed it was our fondness to certain sounds and arrangements, though it seemed to be commonly assumed and accepted that a love of dance comes from the movement. This question brings up an array of directions we could take to study. Is it simply the single point in time that beat and motion connect with each other that stimulates the brain?
It would make sense that the force that is used when moving the body is still present when in a fixed position of stillness, or, is somehow related to this stimulation.
In the same way of thinking, why is it that so many people enjoy making themselves feel dizzy? As this too has an after effect of built up energy, though is slowly released, and felt in our ears rather that instantly felt through our body. Then from this assumption I’m lead to question what it is that is going on in our brains to feel this way.
“In moving as one to an electronic beat, is that actually causing stillness? As opposed to movement?”
Yassmin V Foster, 2020, LCC Sound Arts Lecture, Online Video Streamed Lecture, Introduction to Sound Arts (PU002558), University of the Art London, 3rd Dec 2020.
Joel Stern – 4th December 2020
Joel Stern has been the creative director of Liquid Architecture since 2013 and as stated on his profile on the Liquid Architecture website: “Stern’s work deals with a range of issues, themes and questions connected with theories and practises of sound and listening. Interests include: sound, power and control; covert listening and panacoustic surveillance; polyphony as social practice; experimental music and community ritual; speech, voice, subjectivity; eavesdropping and ventriloquism; techno-politics of machine listening; rhetorics of nonsense and bullshit; pandemic soundscapes; acoustic justice; silence as testimony; post, trans, and non-human listening.”
I have struggled to find a definition for the word “panacoustic”. Though breaking it up might explain it a bit more: “Pan” in terms of music is when a specific sound is moved in an environment to give a greater depth of, or alternative, perspective. I searched the definition for this “pan” term on google and found “Definitions from Oxford Language” on Google’s own webpage that the word could be used to mean “all inclusive” when talking about a specific thing, made up of multiple parts; from the Greek word “pas” which means “all”. Then on the same page there is also a “pan-pan” which is a reference to radio signalling. It is a signal used to express distress. So from this I will assume that “panacoustic surveillance” is the surveillance of a certain area with attention given to whole scope of sound in the space.
– Reference; (Liquid Architecture, 2020, Artists Joel Stern, Viewed on 15th Nov 2020, <https://liquidarchitecture.org.au/artists/joel-stern>).
– Reference; (Pan definition, Google, Viewed on 4th Dec 2020, <https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=pan+definition&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8>).
My question to Joel Stern submitted on the 16th Nov 2020 for the UAL video lecture presented on the 19th Nov 2020:
Hello,
I watched a video of yours on Machine Listening and it made me wonder if AI or globalisation in general could possibly effect the way we naturally speak.
I wonder if you think that with certain languages becoming more dominant in the world and others becoming extinct that there could also be a similar affect on the way we speak.
Do you think that we as a race could become so alike that accents could possibly merge together to create a unified language or way of speaking for the whole planet?
– Or on the other hand do you think that peoples integrity to uphold their culture is too great for this?
– Or maybe that sub cultures and emerging genres of sound/language could give way to an ever diverse range of expression?
My question was not selected by the group leading the Q and A session and I didn’t push to see it answered myself, as it’s more of a suggested topic of conversation than a single question. I see this now and I will refine my questions going forward. I still find it quite fascinating however; the idea of a single language or way of speaking for the entire planet. I don’t believe this would happen unless everyone was given free access to the internet and even then, I believe that subcultures and dialects would continue to emerge.
“In a respectful exchange there’s a beautiful kind of linguistic negotiation that goes on between speakers of different languages, it’s like a dance: There are linguistic and facial ques that tell you that your partner didn’t quite get it and you begin to think of other ways and other words that you would use, so that they might understand you better.”
(Halcyon Lawrence, 4th Oct 2020, Machine Listening Session 2 – Lesson In How (Not) To Be Heard, Online video broadcast, Viewed on 16th Nov 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM5SVoMBnKI>).
Darsha Hewitt – 30th November 2020
I was fascinated when I researched Darsha Hewitt’s work. Her “Personal Sound Track Emitters” work with perception, her “Electrostatic Bell Choir” turns electrostatic energy into kinetic energy and then to sonic energy, her “Sideman 5000 Adventure” and “100 Year Old Quicksilver Cloud” takes very old technology and sees them brought into attention with subjects of “planned obsolescence” which gives a broad picture of the foundations of the society we live in. I was especially surprised by her work on her “20 Oscillators in 20 Minutes” work as it has invited me into the world of physical electronics and showed me how simple such an interest could be. Since watching this last video of hers I have researched how to make basic oscillators and I find it very interesting how sound can come from any source of energy via the medium of a speaker. This is quite evident with the common knowledge that energy is at it’s source a measurement of vibration, and sound is a perception of vibration in air. I am intrigued to learn more and am very much appreciative of this electronic gateway that has been opened up to me.
“So much of how we interact with technology is just on an end-product level, which leaves us unfamiliar with the material aspect of the infrastructure..” – Darsha Hewitt elaborating on Prof. Dr. Ursula Franklin’s suggestion: “that to critically examine technology, it must be looked at as a comprehensive human led practice akin to domesticity, culture and democracy.”
I believe this is a very important point to put forward and be recognised in today’s environment as consumers are so blind to means of production in industries. There are many evils that are apparent as a result of competing “middle-men” (Brands that outsource the manufacturing of their products, to sell them on to a specific market of consumers). Their sole purpose is to acquire product and glorify it, manipulating the customer -alike the saying “selling an experience”- and exploiting the worker.
– Reference; (The True Cost, 2015, Documentary by Andrew Morgan, Viewed in 2017 on Youtube.com, <https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3162938/>).
The point about “planned obsolescence” is a major one to understand also. In the bigger picture, the customer is getting ripped off as a means to stimulate the economy. The bad thing is that the stimulated wealth is increasingly getting swept up by individuals who hold monopoly as the gap between rich and poor is continuing to grow. This means it is now simply a win-win for companies at the top of any industry as they are allowed to set the pace of demand. Should governments take back regulation of production and product value, this could not be an issue and the gap between rich and poor could close.
Lisa Busby – 24th November 2020
In Lisa Busby’s lecture she gave a very inspiring answer to a question regarding her process of composing. She mentioned how she tries not to get wrapped up in the design and ideas of her pieces and relies on improvisation. I related to this point as I too have found a similar sense of “anxiety” when designing a piece of music. I too have also used small sections of repeating melody/rhythm and improvised vocals over the top. So to hear that this example is deemed as an acceptable form of creation is rather reassuring.
She also stated that “repetition is power” and to this I completely agree. I have found that certain numbers hold their own artistic value such as a single unrepeated example of something can have a strong effect (alike the common saying “first impressions”) or the second time something is heard it could have many reactions such as a negative (“you’ve already said that”) or a positive (“thank you for reminding me”) either one instilling the expression or feeling further into a persons memory.
I was told whilst taking a German language class in secondary school that we should read over our writings at least eight times, as it is on the eighth repeat that the full text will most efficiently stay in our memory.
I also feel that this power of repetition is used in popular music: Repeating four bars over and over and often injecting alterations on their second-third repeat, to close on the fourth. I think this is done due to the psychological effect of hearing things three-four times. If you hear something three times consecutively the first instance opens a dialogue, the second gives body to this dialogue and the third closes the exchange of information, the fourth is simply there to remind the listener of the exchange. Hearing four bars, four times, is quite clever because it broadens the listening experience to give more examples of expression, whilst still keeping it rounded and pleasant to listen to.
I believe prime numbers and their nature have a significant effect on people, though this is something I am yet to understand fully.
“Repetition is power”
Lisa Busby from her lecture given to Sound Art students at UAL on 24th Oct 2020
Electric Indigo – 14th November 2020
Notes from Electric Indigo’s lecture on 12th November 2020:
– 1991 DJ Rush – Knee Deep – SABER Records.
– Underground Resistance – Revolution for change – Riot, Panic, Rage, Assault – Riot, Punisher, Eliminator, Adrenaline, Predator, Quadraphonic, Sonic Destroyer, Eye of the storm.
– “Guest Room”, Electric indigo.
– Mindscape – Me and him acidrop, – Blank.
– Time warp 200 loops.
– Wolkenkratzer 1993.
– 1992 Mayday – Belin – DJ Rok, DJ Hell, Mario Debellis.
– Berlin Hard Wax – 1994 (Record Shop).
– Damon Wild.
– DJ Moneypenny – Fax magazine – Brand X.
– New York Record label 1990’s “EX” – Experimental.
– Dance Mania – Chicago Label.
– Had little time to explain the expanse of female artistry when DJing. So created an online database to educate people – Femle:Pressue Network.
– “Granulator”, “Granulator 2”, “Modern Dance Granulator” Synthesizers.
– Ron Murphy Record Cutter – Lock Groove.
– Public Enemy.
– Mo Lochelder.
– Spacialisation of music/Localisation of sound.
– “Exoticism” of women and female work.
– VLP – Terrain.
– Kim Klemans – Record Producer.
– RedbullMusicAcademy.com
– DJ Cassie, Miss Kitten.
– “Sequence of chiffres”.
– Be connected with many people from many backgrounds!
– “Availability of Space” – How culture really thrives.
– “Time and space were endless or did not exist at the same time”.
Electric Indigo’s lecture was extremely insightful and inspiring. She told the story of her life growing up and working through the cultural wave of techno music in Germany during the 90s. She also gave reference to many music producers, record labels, DJs and Artists who she had come into contact with.
I was especially fascinated when she mentioned working in “The Limelight” which is a nightclub in New York, as I know this to be a hub for the “club kid” culture in the 1980’s. I find this period of culture extremely liberating and I am a fan of many people who came into light from this time.
Another point from Electric Indigo that I found very interesting was that culture truly flourishes with the availability of space. This has been demonstrated frequently in the past, such as the Merseyside and Liverpool area in the 1950s, the San Francisco area in the 1960s and the city of New York in the 1970s-1980s. With this she mentions that one of the reasons that the techno club scene really took off in berlin was due to there being space available for people to make use of and create events and businesses, catered to the genre. My thought instantly went to where I live in North Wales and when hearing this I felt very hopeful, that it could lose it’s lethargic energy insight of the strong culture it seems to have forgotten.
I would say the most culturally diverse area in North Wales would be the Wrexham area due to it having more access for people to travel around, whereas the the place with the strongest sense of heritage would be the more secluded areas around Bangor and Anglesey. Anglesey being a resting place of the now extinct druid religion, I hope it could revitalise it’s culture and bring back lost ways of thinking, through art. I think a birth of culture is very foreseeable from North Wales as it attracts a lot of tourism from many cities in England already, and now with restrictions of lockdown, the government advertising “staycations” and the popular television programme “I’m a celebrity… get me out of here” broadcasting one of our dormant castles, the likelihood of this happening is increasing.
– Reference; (Harry Yorke, 13th July 2020, Boris Johnson urges Britons to take ‘staycation’ rather than travelling overseas this summer, Telegraph, Viewed 14th Jan 2021, <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/07/13/boris-johnson-urges-britons-take-staycation-confirms-will-holiday/>).
– Reference; (Naomi Gordon, 15th Nov 2020, I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here, 2020 filming location: Gwrych Castle in North Wales, House Beautiful, Viewed 14th Jan 2021,<https://www.housebeautiful.com/uk/lifestyle/property/a33561418/im-a-celebrity-gwrych-castle-north-wales/>).
Jessica Ekomane – 9th November 2020
I listened to Jessica Ekomane’s live performance of Solid of Revolution, held at Heroines of Sound 2018 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpFL3AnoY5Q>. I listened to the composition from a JBL Flip 4 monitor placed on the floor directly in front of me whilst I stood in a 1.5×3 metre space. I would say the space was more absorbent that reflective though with flat surfaces on 5 of the 6 surfaces surrounding me (the side behind the camera and monitor being open space) the sound felt very concentrated.
I played the composition at a louder than moderate amplitude with the only perceivable outside noise being the hum of my laptop fan, this however was only noticeable at the quieter moments at the beginning or the end of the piece. Ekomane said in her lecture that she wanted to work with rhythm for it’s “bodily quality”, due to it being comprehensible to everyone, not just people with an academic background. She states that this gives the composition a “democratic” quality to it.
Therefore I took it upon myself to do as she mention [respond to her composition] and I recorded my response. To do this I simply used my phone camera which is a 12.2MP f/1.7 camera of a Google Pixel 4a. Ekomane says she uses psychology and psychoacoustics a lot to try to understand peoples ability to perceive her work.
I decided to do this experiment to see what I could learn though I found myself fascinated by her composition rather than my reaction. The way that she adds and takes away beats gives emphasis or focus to them individually, whilst also melting into the rest of the piece at any other time. She has programmed the piece using MaxMSP and the points at which multiple beats play in unison at any time made me enjoy the music more than if there were only one baseline rhythm. A song having one constant or recurring baseline beat is what I find most interesting when listening to popular dance music.
The addition of beats especially those of higher frequency surprised me and it took time for my brain to process them into the rest of the piece. When hearing them I was amused. I think it is very clever how the focus of the piece constantly changes and I found myself dancing more when the beats grew closer together than when they were more separated. At these separated points I found myself simply enjoying the sounds of the piece like when listening to classical music.
I asked questions about employment and funding when it comes to being a sound arts practitioner and Jessica Ekomane gave really great responses. She told us that we can acquire funding by applying through arts institutions based in different countries and how different countries have their own allowances that they dedicate to the arts. She stated that a very good country for arts funding at the present time is Norway and other European countries. She stated that the UK isn’t giving so much in terms of funding for arts at the moment though each country fluctuates depending on political and social climate.
I have seen within the fashion industry how there is panels of prestigious professionals who will set competitions and allocate funding as well as mentorship to winners that pass their judgement, this is much the same as making a deal with investors, for assistance with a business venture. Within fashion I would say that the UK and USA have a large stance of influence in these types of deals.
“They were myths I once believed, and now they were beliefs I felt were myths.”
jessicaekomane.com from google.com