We were discussing what we thought “Sound Arts” was, it was interesting to see how some people were saying that only humans can make art. Me and my partner were talking about how its about the perceiver as well as the creator. Because once you have created said thing it is only art when someone with self aware consciousness interacts with it. A lot of the time a piece of art will be created with a specific meaning but once put into the hand of the many its meaning is distorted to fit the narrative of the interpreter, E.g. a lot of leftist punk/revolutionary songs have been played at Fascist rallies, and i doubt that Rage Against the Machine would’ve been happy seeing their songs used for the opposite what they believe.
On a similar note if a bird is chirping and singing a beautiful melody, is that bird aware that what it is singing is so beautiful, or is beauty only imbued to the birdsong by a human observer that has made him feel a certain way. Art doesn’t always need to be intentional as some accidents or just documentation of a sound without and processing can be as much art as something that was intentionally created. There is a device that you can hook up to mushrooms and trees that records their electromagnetic waves and converts them into midi/or voltage signals that can be used to trigger and instrument or make its own sound. Recording the mushrooms waves you means you have no control over what the mushroom will do so you are more of a backseat driver to natures perfect randomness and by documenting that you are shining a light an otherwise hidden world.
On the other hand juxtaposed to natural is A.I, my parter said showed be a video that Artificial Intelligence can produce art, it posed so many question in my head. Does the A.I know it’s making art or is it just replicating what it’s seen. And does A.I have the ability to feel art or is it just trying to replicate the reaction that it sees from others.
For my project i want to use synthetic and natural sounds and juxtapose the contrast between serene natural sounds and the industrial background noise of everyday life. The sound track for TUTSUO IRON MAN i am going to dissect and analyse the use of industrial sounds.
Natural:
Flesh squelching
Dog Barking
Bird chirping
Synthetic/ Mechanical :
Drill/industrial site
Traffic