Category: Introduction To sound Arts

18/10/21 Sound Arts In the British Context Week 4

Intro

“What I’m trying out at this stage in my life is new formats, or new settings maybe’ , or formats and settings that have been tried before but then been forgotten or pushed aside because established formats have such a  powerful hold on our thinking.” (toop p.582)

https://moodle.arts.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/1226114/mod_resource/content/1/Toop%20%20Parkinson-Sound%20Art%20in%20the%20UK.pdf

Troop was heavily into exploring new perspectives and “formats” to confront the “orthodoxies” of the current art climate, that toop deems to be infected by the capitalist tendencies. As people become so accustomed to the current format they exist in that they don’t dare to question the parameters and boundaries.

“In the 1970s we called it “sound work,” which I prefer and still use. One of the reasons for that was a very 1970s idea of aligning yourself with a worker. We tried to detach ourselves from the art world (which we were detached from whether we liked it or not) and also from the music world. We were also conscious that we were making work that couldn’t be accommodated by existing orthodoxies of music or art galleries. But sound art to me is problematic for a number of reasons. One, because it is so closely associated with a particular world and a particular economy – the art world – and there are all sorts of reasons why that’s difficult. It puts a strong focus
on the creation of some kind of object, even if that be a conceptual, text, or installation object“

Written by David Troop p.583

Summary

Toop finds Sound art “problematic” 1.The economy of the art world. (issues of value – e.g. Banksy Monet, Elitist, Class, Privilege, Crime, Capitalism, would it be so expensive if it was a way of cleaning dirty money?, Austerity ) – Provide examples of case study to back argument. 2. The creation of an object (even if a text, concept, pr installation) “sound work was always about A PROCESS”

Research money laundering in the art world

“The very nature of art makes it an attractive vehicle for money laundering. For one, the value of any work is fundamentally subjective and therefore easily manipulated. Art can also be smuggled or otherwise transported with ease and related transactions can be conducted privately and anonymously.“

https://kyc360.riskscreen.com/news/art-in-the-frame-for-money-laundering/

Reflection and Discussion

There are a few contradictions in Toops discourse – on the one hand he ta

Is all expensive art money laundering? Tax havens?

What is dirty money? Crime Vs Tax evading

Is the freedom of art trapped by being forced to conform to the capitalist landscape by the final products having to be a “object” that can be bought and sold and live in this last capitalist economy”

Is art just content? (The economy of clout)

Long lasting clout vs instant gratification consumer clout

Conclusion

Glossary

Orthodox

Problematic –

Hybrid – an amalgomation of various components

Aesthetics- A set of principles underlying the work of a particular artist or artistic movement. (A format?)

https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Aesthetics_Wiki

Hperindividual:

Is the hyper individual landscape that we exist in is actually counter productive to the ideals that it tried to assert? In being so individual people are more focussed on their echo chambers of comfort and the distribution of freedom is seemed to be fair but in fact is segregated and unequal.

Is there more power gained to the indivusials if they undergo collective action such as trade unions (E.G IATSE) to challenge the monopolies and choakholds of power created by corporations and rich individuals. If the boss isn’t listening to the voices of the collective majority that works for them, then they will strike so they can not be ignored. Which in doing so will bring more ethical freedom E.G Lunch Break, weekends off, work hours) to the individuals who are “entitled” to the liberties that they were “promised” in this neoliberal atmosphere.

Cloud Etymology – Hard hitting/Holds weight (Chicago writers coined the term and comes from baseball when they hit a ball hard” )

https://www.etymonline.com/word/clout

Reference

Small C, (1998) Musicking : the meanings of performing and listening Publisher: Middletown, CT : Wesleyan University Press, 1998.

Introduction To Sound Arts Week 6 Japan

Ive always been intrigued at anime and other forms of japanese art, and was especially interested when i watched “Akira” thhat foccused on humans relationship with technology and power. The black and white film Tetsuo: The iron man is heavily linked to the main antagonist of Akira “Tetsuo”.

Iron mans soundtrack is an industrial cyberpunk take on the future using metallic klangs and video game synth sounds to audibly document the main characters decent into a deformed machine. I found it interesting seeing in 1989 japan, and how the recent event that preceded these film, WW2 and Hiroshima, has left a taste in the peoples mouth that thing bring into their art . And gradual decent into a mutant robot that cant control its power is a reflection of japan during its fascistic times and how too much power can corrupt anything.

http://www.swarthmore.edu/library/exhibitions/japan/essays/vision1.php

Introduction To Sound Arts Week 5

When we were in class and Milo was talking about how sound can alter your perception of time and place my mind immediately wandered to anime/80s dytopian movies and the more fiction/ escapist side of sound design.

THX 1138

When looking at this proto-star wars film by George Lucas that had a very acclectic soundtrack using nostalic and futuristic sounds, even though it was based in the future, including bits of jazz in somescenes and then ambient drone in another. This juxterpostion was said to allow the composer Lao Schifin to specifically cater each piece to each scene. However in a Soundtrack.Net article said

“While the vast array of music styles allows Schifrin to address each scene’s needs very specifically, what ultimately happens is that the film’s soundtrack as a whole feels incoherent.  When one listens to the soundtrack in total, he or she will have no sense of the overall film.  There are so many styles and moods present that the soundtrack has no unity.”

But in the contrary i feel that a jumbled mix of tastes and polarising sound is the soundscape of the future, that is polluted with so many ideas that live alongside one another simultaneously. It out of that polarity that we are unified by.

Introduction To Sound Arts 16/10/2021

Cedrick Fermont

Cedrick is a berlin based composer, musician, mastering engineer, author, radio host, concert organiser, independent researcher and label manager (at Syrphe) who operates in the field of noise, electronic and experimental music since 1989. His compositions and installations vary from sound art and electroacoustic to noise to industrial to more conventional “dance” music such as electronica or acid and so on.

I found Cedrick really intriguing as he started in the kind of scenes that i’m interested in; industrial, punk, goth ect. And found it interesting when he was taking about the “decolonisation of culture” and how that accessibility to culture is a privilege in itself. I found it interesting that he wanted to find music that is typically Western in pockets of the world where you wouldn’t think of it being there. He was taking about Yugoslavia, which is where my mums from, and its intrigued me to delve deeper into its goth/post-punk history.

He was saying that undiscovered cultures/scenes almost have a benefit to being so anonymous is that they can observe and document Western culture ad absorb ad be influenced by said work, but the rest of the world has no idea of the small scenes existence, almost like a one way mirror. This allows more detached cultures to create that kind of music but from a detached perspective from the reality of privilege in the west and therefore may come up with their own style and finding solutions to being limited.

When I was a teenager and young adult, in Belgium, I often asked myself why I was one of the very few ‘brown’ persons in the punk, goth, industrial, experimental, EBM, noise scenes and it quickly pushed me to try to find out what was happening in non-western European and North American countries. Back then, in the 1980s and early 1990s, even accessing alternative music from eastern Europe, apart of a few Yugoslav, Soviet, Polish or Czechoslovak artists, was not an easy task, so no need to tell how difficult it was to find music from far away places, even from Australia or New Zealand.

I also believe in decolonisation of the arts and culture in general (and I don’t only speak about the results of western colonisation) and am a strong supporter of networks and cultural exchanges in all directions, and as much as possible, to refer to Deleuze and Guattari, rhizomatic networks and collaborations, we all have to learn from each other, even when some may have a greater knowledge in a certain domain than others; treating the other person as an equal, providing the other person the same opportunities than any western artist would be able to access, no matter what their genre, philosophical and cultural background are.

Cedrik Fermont: Syrphe, Life in Noise, and Sociocultural Explorations of the Avant-Garde Climate

Sonic Doing & Thinking: Germany Week 7

White Cube

The central principal of the modernist exhibition space of the white cube came to be understood as a neutral space, where works are displayed in a setting allegedly allows optimal concentration on their perception.  Sealed windows’ artificial illumination, and walls painted white create a “clean” & “artificial” environment in which the artworks are not subject to time and space and kept disconnected from the world outside of it.” (Irene Noy: Touching sound art: In west Germany)

“Wherever we are, we are surrounded by invisible waves, which can be received everywhere and anywhere and can be made sonorous and vivid.”

Artisits: Luigi Russolo, Man Ray, Christina Kubisch,  Bernhard Leitner.

Ideas: The symbiotic relationship between our senses (especially sight and hearing) also us to trick and distort the toots that we use to analyse and examine the world around us, which in turn plays with the idea of consciousness and if everything we perceive is our brain ordering reality to its own assumptions of of what we deep “real”

4/10/21 Introduction to Sound Arts Week 1

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