Mandy-Suzanne Wong is discussing different approaches to what sound arts may and may not mean based on insight into history of various ways how sound was used for creative purposes. She is pointing out that term “sound art” was used for the first time by the American composer William Hellerman in 1983 however her reach into possibility of artistic expression through sound out of conventional music goes back to the beginning of 20th Century by mentioning aestheticization of noise and machinery by Italian Futurists.

I found particularly interesting points about questioning relation between sound art and other art forms. Mandy-Suzanne Wong says that sound art may explicitly include or exclude other art forms. This unbalance brings me to the thought that sound art as a quite modern form of art seemes to be rooted in questioning of its own existence and in comparison to other art forms seems to be inherently philosophical. 

Another interesting point is that research into sound arts has been undertaken rather by visual artists than musicologists. This suggests obvious diversion from conventional music and perceives sound art as something else. Is music as an organised artistic expression through sound waves part of sound art or is sound art an experimental form of music? This is another question arising.

1. What context or genre is your work situated in: what artists does your work relate to?

My current sound work has been mainly happening in the field of experimental electronic music as producer, live act and a DJ. I have been mostly designing sounds in DAW however recently I started to incorporate analog synthesis, field recordings, acoustic instruments and music concrète. There are many musicians who I look up to but this has been changing a lot over years. Currently my favourite artists are experimental electronic musicians like Roly Porter, Nastika or OAKE.

2. What are the key ideas and motivations for your work?

This was always difficult question as often I struggled to find words to describe my music and source of its inspiration. The sound and music are for me somehow the most natural way how I can artistically express myself. I believe that art is a form of communication. People communicate commonly by language however human mind and life are way more complicated to be extensively expressed only by spoken or written language. Sound and music can communicate undescribeable feelings and emotions. My motivation is to communicate with others my inner world within space and time via sound waves. 

3. What form and media does your work take/hope to take?

Immersion in music and sound has been an element I have been ultimately always drawn to. The idea of exploring the field of audio-visual immersive installations is currently very appealing to me. Creating an experience inducing the fantasy of an altered state of mind. Not necessarily as a form of escapism (but also could be) but as a meditation and relief.

4. What do you want your art/practice to do?

As I suggested above I consider the art a form of communication based on different human experience than for example language. Inducing an emotional response in other people in a way that their soul would be touched, finding those people who can feel through the sound ‘this sound is familiar to me, this is reminding me of who I am and we are. Inducing such feeling until such extend that any spoken or written words couldn’t express.

Liquid Scream

Fill up the bathtub with the water.

Merge yourself in the water and scream.

Listen to bubbles of air coming out of your mouth and how the sound spreads within the bathtub.

Focus on the sound of your voice in the water and resonance of the bathtub spreading through the water.

Record it with hydrophone, contact microphone attached to body of the bathtub and field recorder positioned above the bathtub.

Make sure you don’t drown.

The Sound of Sleep

Position field recorder close to pillow in the bed where you sleep.

Attach contact microphones to your abdomen, structure of the bed, duvet and pillow.

Record for the whole length of your sleep.

Look for the peaks in the sound wave to identify louder or interesting moments within the period of your sleep.

Listen to sounds of your bedroom, your breath, sleep walking, sleep talking and sounds which your body makes during the sleep.

There is an immediate idea coming to my mind what the dichotomy of listening and hearing might be. One is happening constantly and nearly cannot be avoided another one is done my willing choice. It is impossible to switch off hearing in the same way like we can close our eyes in order to not see. Hearing is very automated therefore a lot of information coming from this particular sense is becoming somehow suppressed and non-conscious. Listening on the other hand is a conscious activity requiring our attention in the moment. Listening is harnessing the hearing together with mental focus in order to perceive particular sound or sounds.

Listening is dependent on hearing. We wouldn’t be able to listen without hearing but we do hear without listening a lot. There is few questions arising. What make us to listen? When and how hearing becomes listening. What elements of sound(s) and which situations make that transition from non-conscious hearing into conscious listening?

I have created a typology of listening based on the avenue of how hearing becomes listening considering the relation between object and subject – Listening could be For purpose of art or for purpose of survival. In both situations the sound attracts our attention for some reason. The reason can be automatic (comes from outside – we hear something and are made to listen) but also a conscious as matter of choice (comes from inside – we decide to listen use the hearing consciously).

Here are some examples:

Artistic Automatic Listening – There is a sound piece, music or soundscape happening around us. We simply resonate with it for whatever reason therefore it draws our attention and we become conscious listeners.

Hearing the object ➔ Subject is listening

Artistic Conscious Listening – There is a sound piece, music or soundscape happening somewhere and we know about it from before, somebody told us about it or we may presume it happening based on other information. We decide to approach to listen to it with an intention which precedes hearing it.

Subject uses hearing ➔ listening to the object

Survival Automatic Listening – We are crossing the street and unfortunately pay less attention than we are supposed to. A car honks in order to attract our attention, very quickly, in mili-second transforms hearing into listening and stops us from being hit.

Hearing the object ➔ Subject is listening

Survival Conscious Listening – A group of humans decide to go hunting in order to obtain food. Conscious utilisation of silence whilst observing the prey is hearing transformed into conscious listening.

Subject uses hearing ➔ listening to the object

When I am thinking about three everyday sounds which contain qualities like rhythm, texture and pitch I don’t need to go very far at all. Those sounds can be found and identified simply in connection with my own physical body as in general human experience.

Rhythm – Breath

Very quiet and textured rhythmical sound with different pace depending on activity which

We are doing at the moment or our current mental state. We cannot avoid this sound since we need to breath. It is only a matter of finding the quiet moment and corner to hear this sound. Consciously or not we do find such moment and hear it clearly every day at least once anyway – before we fall asleep in bed. 

Texture – Crunching and Chewing Food

Once I realised that sounds related to my mouth are the loudest ones to perceive if we consider that our surrounding environment is quiet. We not only hear what is coming out of our mouth but we perceive more textures of resonances through the mass of our body directly touching the inner ear especially when we are eating food or drinking water. It is like the jaw bone being a contact mic. Again – we need to eat every day therefore we do hear this every day.

Pitch – Voice

Sound of our voice is naturally changing the pitch all the time. Either when we are talking or even singing change of the pitch it’s constant unless we are willingily trying to impersonate a robot as a perfomance. 

Sound Signal – sounds which are meant to be listened to, measured or stored.

Very explicit sound signal is for example beeping sound of card reader upon entering classes or gates upon entering the building.

Keynote sound – Sounds which are heard by a particular society continuously or frequently enough to form a background against which other sounds are perceived

Backround noise of the corridors or dishes with cutlery on canteen.

Soundmark – a community sound, which is unique or possesses qualities which make it specially regarded or noticed by people in that community

Silent ambience of the library and the way to the library. Bridge right before entrance has high ceiling and it amplifies surrounding sounds with transition into hyper quiet environment of the library with occassional sound of turning pages.

Two pieces in particular drawn my attention during the visit of Tate Modern. Brain Forest Quipu by Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña and 112L by Leonardo Drew.

Brain Forest Quipu has struck me straight away by its contradictions – massiveness and softness. At first I thought that this multi-media installation is dream-catchers. Two 27 meters long sculptures are hanging from the ceiling in Turbine Hall. The piece consists from fabric sculpture, sound, music, and video. It mourns the destruction of nature (rain forest and the loss of Indigenous history and culture (Anon, n.d.).

I have visited the piece several times in upcoming three days from our first visit. Physical presence of sculpture is quietly monumental like the rain forest itself. Sonic element gives to the piece the of dimension of change spanning over 8 hours. It has been conceived by Vicuña and directed by Colombian composer Ricardo Gallo and it brings together indigenous music from several regions, compositional silences, new pieces by Gallo, Vicuña, other artists and field recordings from nature.

I particularly indulged in listening to the sound and music from different distances from the piece within majestic Turbine Hall. The reverberation of the huge space brought to compositions the whole new perspective. The clarity of compositions was dissolving within long decaying echo of Turbine Hall and approaching closer to the core of the sculpture brought you to original sound of compositions but here it is – where the sound is coming from? It took me good few minutes to locate the source of the sound which was coming from many little speakers wrapped up in little cocoons blending with many other knots and fabrics.

What I didn’t enjoy about the piece was inherently necessary due to its placing and I myself was part of that – people visiting the gallery and their chatter within Turbine Hall were somehow disturbing the beauty of reverberation experienced whilst observing and listening to the sculpture from distance. 

Another piece which I liked wasn’t probably a sound piece at its original intention however what intrigued me was its relation to the sound by the bias of my mindset of sound artist. 

112L by Leonardo Drew is a sculpture made of wood. It made me thought how different may be interpretation of art pieces within fields or even across them based on our own history and interests. 

Wooden sculpture immediately reminded me visual representation of sound waves (most likely white noise) in wavetable generator.

Anon, (n.d.). [online] Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/cecilia-vicuña.

“In the form of unfelt activities, what could be called matrix ‘of advancing acts that have already arisen from previous situations’ (Langer 1967: 281), constitutes the mood of a feeling, and this mood shapes the kind of conceptual moves that can be made in an occasion of feeling, then this dimension of organic activity should be regarded as a structured and structuring ground that determines the kind of abstractions or abstractive tendencies that can take place within it without, however, determining the characteristics of these abstractions.”

This paragraph has been extracted from the essay Felt as thought (or, musical abstraction and semblance of affect) by eldritch Priest. The essay is part of wider collection which ‘…features new essays that bring together recent developments in sound studies and affect studies.’ (Thompson and Biddle 2013: 250).

Considering the name of the essay, the content of the paragraph may be suggesting the dichotomy and mutual relation between rational thinking and emotions induced by music or sound. Possibly we could extend this to experiencing any art form in general. “…form of unfelt activities, what could be called ‘matrix ‘of advancing acts that have already arisen from previous situations’ (Langer 1967: 281)… “ cited from S. Langer’s Mind: Essay on Human Feeling indicates a collection of experiences derived from ‘unfelt’, which could be considered from rational. This rational thinking may be somehow shaping (‘biasing’?) our momentary emotional experience (abstractions) whilst we are exposed to the art piece. This suggests that our emotional experience of art never exists fully independent out of certain preliminary structures of our own individual experience of life, history and mind.

Bibliography:

Priest, e. (2013) Felt as thought (or, musical abstraction and semblance of affect), in: Thompson, M. and Biddle, I. (eds.) Sound, Music, Affect: Theorizing Sonic Experience. Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 45-64.

In this blog post I would like to compare and explore possible relation between two sound art practices, soundwalking of Hildegard Westerkamp and Electrical Walks of Christine Kubish. The practice of sound walking emerged in 1970s inspired by practice of conscious listening of the environment and acoustic ecology (Staśko-Mazur, 2015: 440-441). Westerkamp’s soundwalking is inherently ecological activity. She is questioning the backround noise and sonic pollution of human cities creating ‘authoritarian environment’ which causes inability to hear and listen to tiny sounds of barnacles during Kits Beach Soundwalk and it concerns her. Westercamp isolated those tiny noises with a use of bandpass filters and equalisation and so gave the chance to unheard voices to be heard there she doesn’t promote complete abandonment of technology (Kobler, 2002: 41-42).

Christine Kubish started her Electrical Walks in 2004 inspired by her previous sound installations from 1980s based on listening to amplified electromagnetic fields of wires. She has created headphones with built-in microphones and amplifiers which allows listeners to walk freely in the city and listen to multitude of various electromagnetic fields which surround us constantly in urban environment. Kamila Staśko-Mazur considers Electrical Walks as a new strategy of soundwalking (Staśko-Mazur, 2015: 441).

Both types of soundwalking practices differ from each others as well as carry a lot of in common. Westercamp is trying to escape human cities so she can listen to silenced sounds of the nature and maybe to find her own inner voice too (Kobler, 2002: 42). On the other hand Kubish is diving right into the noise polluted human city centres. She also uses the technology for the similar reason – to listen to the unheard. Electromagnetic fields and barnacles are both silent by its nature. Both can be brought up to be louder and be heard by the use of the technology. However human induced electromagnetic fields are by product of the noise pollution which are silencing the tiny nosies of the nature. In contrary Westerkamp once said that ‘we should listen to our cities as the native did to the forest’ (Westerkamp, 1974: 18-24) and that’s what Kubish did in more depth and precision. Certain sense of ambivalence is arising whilst comparing these two practices.

I really enjoyed the idea of Electrical Walks by Christine Kubish. It reveals sonic realms constantly present in the city environment but hidden to our hearing and brings completely different perspective and inspiration. I am particularly interested in drone sounds and electromagnetic fields are inducing these a lot in many forms, textures and pitches. Regular percussive sounds can be found as well. On contrary randomness and irregularity of sounds of barnacles is what I liked a lot in Kits beach Soundwalk of Hildegard Westerkamp. 

Immersion

I have been always intrigued by immersive performances and audio-visual installations. The main reason is the possibility of escaping from the reality which surrounds us into realms of dreams, timelessness and abstraction. Certain type of sounds (f.e. drones), its characteristics (f.e. reverberation), shapes and lights induce in me very particular states of mind close to meditation.

Installation

Music production and music performance have been part of my artistic expression for the most of my life. Over the time mainly due to electronic music club environments I started to develop interest in different avenues how to express the need around playing with and manipulating the sound. There are different scales of time and space when it comes to sound installations and sound sculptures in comparison to music performances and productions which take the form of the release for example. I would like to work with similar vibes and emotions which I always liked in performances, reframe and execute them within different time-scales and spaces.

Psychoacoustics

Certain frequencies and their combinations can make us feel and react certain ways. I am keen to explore how sound installations and sound/music performances impact human emotions and psyche when executed in specific ways. Playing with specific frequencies to induce particular states of mind.

I have been intrigued the most of my life time by probably the most common and widespread artistic expression through sound waves – music – listening and indulging myself in many genres and trends of acoustic, electroacoustic and electronic music. The logical outcome of my love to music was starting to play electric guitar and then later electronic music production.

Through my interaction with the music, both as a listener and musician/producer, I have observed several aspects which always caught my attention, for example the physicality of reproduced sound during live performances and club environments. I started to break down other aspects of recorded and live musical compositions and sounds which drew my attention and questioned why they make me feel certain way in certain moments. It became a constant back and forth coming from acoustic and electroacoustic music to electronic music perceiving the sound and its aspects more consciously until isolating them, realising them more in natural and synthetic environments and having an urge to explore them as phenomenas itself.

Drones – Pleasant and calm drone of bee hives contra nervous drones of insects high in the tree crowns of the forest just before the storm hits. Drone music and ambient can be very meditative and calming but also can create a tension by oscillating in lower frequencies and adding darker textures by distorting them. 

Reverberation – sense of space and depth within music as well as natural environments. I particularly enjoy echoing of very large spaces. A visit of Chislehurst caves in South East London striked particularly me with its extremely long and pleasant decay.

These were only two examples of many phenomenas which I would like to explore.