2. Jonathan Sterne, Urban ...... Media and the Politics of 1. Editorial John Heymans 2 Sound Space (p. 6)
3. Ulrich Loock, Times Square Max Neuhaus’s Sound 2. Quietscapes; Noise, Silence and Work in New York City (p. 82)
ReDesigning the Public Sonosphere 4. LIGNA, The Future of Radio Art A Monolougue Julian H. Scaff ...... 4 (p. 110) Caroline Basset, ‘How May Movements?’ Mobile Tele- phones and Transformations 3. You Write Like Radiowaves; in Urban Space (p. 38)
Alex de Jong and Marc Footnotes for An Article Schuilenburg, The Audio Hallucinatory Spheres of the ...... City A Pop Analysis of the Sonia Ribeiro 4-29 Urbanization process (p. 19)
Ulrich Loock, Times Square Max Neuhaus’s Sound Work 4. Transformations of Species of in New York City (p. 91) LIGNA, The Future of Spaces Iris Tenkink ...... 8 Radio Art A Monologue for a Broadcast Voice: (p. 111)
Dirk van Weelden, The Multiplication of the Street 5. Always a Combination of Pri- New Impulses for Radio vate and Public; Justin Bennett (p. 73) LIGNA, Dial the Signals on Field Recordings and City Maps (p. 120) Ulrich Loock, Times Square Max Neuhaus’s Sound Work Dagmar Kriegesmann...... 12 in New York City ( p. 82)
Mark Bain, Psychosonics and the Modulation of Public 6. Radio Becoming Art Space (p. 100) Huib Haye van der Werk, Sarah Washington ...... 18 Radiodays An Iquiry into an Aural Space (p.124) 7. Where is Radio Art? Knut Aufermann...... 20 8. Dear Max Marrianne Viero .... 11, 19, 28-29 9. About Strategies of Sonic Control and Inter Reaction Idan Hayosh ...... 26 10. Radio Days: A Visitation in the Sonosphere Julian H. Scaff ...... 28
Contents 1 12, 117
open_reorder.indd 1 3/26/06 9:04:16 PM open 9, Cahier on Art and the Public Domain on the subject of Sound in Art and Culture.
1. Editorial John Heymans
According to Alfred North White- streams in the creative domain: head, the British logician who col- private and public art. The stu- laborated intensively with his more dents can participate for instance well-known colleague Bertrand Rus- in all kinds of workshops dealing sell, the whole of western philoso- with commissions for one or another phy is nothing more but a footnote art work in public space. to Plato’s dialogues. This histori- cal wise-crack invites an examina- As Jorinde Seijdel states in her tion of the basics of a footnote Editorial in Open 9, the accent in to some extent. Is a footnote just cultural or social analysis of the a reference to another article or public space often rests on the book, is it a step aside, an elabo- visual aspects, although the role ration not important enough to put of sound in the public domain is, in the actual text, or are all of softly spoken, at least as impor- these perspectives involved? In any tant. According to this very same case, footnotes potentially connect point of view the DAI staff have a piece of writing to the realm of recently set up a number of proj- all texts ever written. ects and workshops concerned with sound in the broadest sense of the In this one time issued magazine term. One of these DAI projects, called “Open 9.5” a number of stu- conceived by the German sound art- dents at the Dutch Art Institute ist and sci-fi composer Felix Kubin, (DAI) have written a handful of was called BIMRAB (or “Big Mouth footnotes to the ninth edition of Radio Beam”). In this collaborative the magazine Open, an issue that assignment all the students had to was dedicated to sound and art in focus on the sound of bodily func- the public domain. It may not sur- tions. After an intensive working prise you that DAI is interested period it debouched into a one day very much in the scopes of the Open show in the Amsterdam art space magazine. This institution is a W139, and simultaneously manifested postgraduate school in art practice as a live radio broadcast on the based in Enschede, in the Nether- London-based radio art station lands, near the German border. The ResonanceFM. DAI courses converge on two main
4 2 .5 Muted Sound
open_reorder.indd 2 3/26/06 9:04:17 PM The preparation and production of this counterpoint issue related to Open 9 can also be considered as an enquiry into the sound aspects of public space, but this time these features mainly resonated in the heads of the students. The Open 9.5 project could be subtitled for instance like: Muted Sound in Art and Culture. In other words, it is more theoretical than practical oriented. According to their study of the contributions to Open 9 the DAI students have written a variety of footnotes to that issue as well as other thoughts which they want to share with the outside world. And Darcy Jeffs, a student at the Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem, who was invited to design the DAI magazine, elaborated all this in a very inspiring way. As a matter of fact she was one of the first par- ticipants in the project to mention the idea of footnoting.
Next to the essays and footnotes in Open 9.5 a special audio CD has been produced. It contains an edit of ResonanceFM broadcast of the BIMRAB-project in which all DAI students were involved and another piece, a short but power- ful surprise which you will know more about if you read the issue closely. The audio CD is an extra feature to Open 9.5, but you will have to send the attached postcard to the Dutch Art Institute to order it. For free. If you do so, this postcard and the audio CD in re- turn will become objects moving in public space. They might make some sounds now and then, for instance when they rub a little to other pieces in the postal bags or when they are put into postboxes. You never know.
By the end this editorial leaves me with one question at least: is this a footnote to all the contributions of the DAI students footnoting the Open 9 issue or is it something else?
Editorial 3 5
open_reorder.indd 3 3/26/06 9:04:17 PM 2. Jonathan Sterne, Urban Media and the Politics of Sound Space ‘Muzak, also known as a nonaggressive music deterrent, is used more and more often as a strategic weapon in effort to make public space safe and control- able ...’ (p. 6)
‘ In the early 1990s a curious phenomenon appeared on the US press’s radar screen. Convienence stores and even whole shopping districts be- gan to blast programmed mu- sic – best known by its brand name Muzak – outdoors in parking lots, walkways, door- ways, and parks.’(p. 7)
3. Ulrich Loock, Times Square Max Neuhaus’s Sound Work in New York City ‘Max Neuhaus’ work was first installed on Times Square in 1977. ... Without being visually or materially present, 2. Quietscapes; Noise, Silence and Neuhaus creates what he calls an individual and authentic ReDesigning the Public Sonosphere experience of place. (p. 82) Julian H. Scaff
“The strings, the winds, the brass public health repercussions, the know more about music than they do definition and control of noise also about sound. To study noise they has social, political, and cultural must go to the school of percussion. motivations. • What is Noise? Noise There they will discover silence, can be defined simply as an unwanted a way to change one’s mind; and as- sound. This, however, is extremely pects of time that have not yet been subjective. The sound of a motorcy- put into practice.” 1 John Cage cle engine can be noise to one per- son but music to another. Nonethe- • In the parking lots of 7-11 con- less, there are sound levels which venience stores across the United are quantifiably harmful to hearing. Installation of the Sound Work by Max Neu- States and Canada, “easy listen- For instance, prolonged exposure to haus on Times Square in ing” Muzak is used to control public the sound of busy urban automobile New York. © Max Neuhaus. space.2 In New York City’s Times traffic, typically around 85 deci- (p. 88) Square a sound that 1. Cage, John. An Auto- bels, can cause permanent hearing has been described biographical Statement. loss. Gasoline-powered lawn mowers New Albion Records. N.D. as the reverbera-
You Write Like Radio Waves: ent pathways and then get assembled Control; 8 Dispersion; 9 On Footnotes for an Article in an appropriate but not necessar- the street; 10 Communication; Sonia Ribeiro ily proper sequence.” 11 Another Exercise; 12 Radio –Excerpt from an e-mail, R.K. Art, Amsterdam; 13 Private Prop- “(... )I have the feeling the erty; 14 Voice; 15 The future of dial is just off and the message 1 Introduction; 2 Radio Intervenes Radio Art; 16 Repetition might be mixed up in sequence (a in everyday situations; 3 An exer- very internet-age phenomena – 15 cise; 4 Distribution and Gathering; 1 In their article “The Future of packets of fame following differ- 5 Whose Voice; 6 Constellation; 7 Radio Art, Monologue for a broad-
6, 7, 82, 88 4 .5 Muted Sound
open_reorder.indd 4 3/26/06 9:04:17 PM ing consistency to its territory.”6 eminently occupied by the musical 4. LIGNA, The Future of There is also a sense of an inside possibilities of noise, yet he also Radio Art A Monolougue for a Broadcast Voice ‘... and an outside with noise and quiet. understood the necessity of quiet in the shopping centre ‘De Noise, especially loud noise, be- for listening. As Peter Gutman Kalvertoren’ in Amsterdam longs to the street and to the lower observes: “Although often described on 27 April 2005 between 4.45pm and 5.45pm in the classes. When “easy listening” as a silent piece, 4’33” isn’t si- programme of the art project Muzak is played in a parking lot, lent at all. While the performer Radiodays at the Curatorial a sonic inside is created that is makes as little sound as possible, Training programme of The safe for consumers and the middle Cage breaks traditional boundaries Foundation De Appel in Amsterdam. Several ghetto and upper-class. Muzak has proven by shifting attention from the stage blasters hidden in shopping to drive away undesirable people, to the audience and even beyond the bags received a broadcast for example; people from a lower concert hall. You soon become aware voice. (p. 110) class, teenagers and other non-con- of a huge amount of sound, ranging sumers, and therefore becomes an from the mundane to the profound, acceptable or even desirable form of from the expected to the surpris- noise because it creates a cleaner ing, from the intimate to the cosmic and safer space for middle and up- –shifting in seats, riffling pro- per class consumers. The Muzak is grams to see what in the world is essentially a sound barrier against going on, breathing, the air condi- undesirable people as well as unde- tioning, a creaking door, passing sirable sounds. In many cases this traffic, an airplane, ringing in your has to do not only with the type of ears, a recaptured memory.”10 • In noise, but also with volume. Sterne essence, for 4’33” to work, the mu- observes that “volume is clearly sic hall and the performer-audience cast as a class and respectability paradigm must act as sound barriers issue; excessive volume becomes a to the noise that would otherwise form of noise and, therefore, a kind prevent the audience from listen- of social disruption, suitable for ing. In the modern world, where the miners but not for men of culture.” lower and working class work in 7 Therefore, building middle and factories and live next to motorways upper class neighborhoods in close and train tracks, listening is a proximity to sources of loud ma- privilege of the middle and upper-
chine-age noise 7. Sterne, Jonathon. The class. • Sound Barriers by Artists requires the con- Audible Past. Durham and Things such as sound barriers along London: Duke University struction of sound Press, 2003: p. 279. highways and railway lines are not barriers, as the only blockades against noise as an intrusion of street noise into one’s environmental pol- 10. Gutmann, Peter. private home is just as vulgar as lutant but also The Sounds of Silence. Ghetto blasters, hidden Classical Notes. 1999. in plastic bags, broad- the intrusion of a vagrant in an against the sonic
cast voice”, the German collec- of not being suited for a written abstraction. tive LIGNA materialize a possible platform. It addresses the reader in voice for the radio through the a direct and demanding way, asking In an attempt to become an ar- form of fragmented text, previ- questions and suggesting practical ticle or essay on radio, titles ously used as a radio broadcast exercises. were added to the original text. in an Amsterdam street. The monologue attempts a forged Titles can help you understand “Monologue for a broadcast voice” interaction with the reader, main- the text, creating a guide- it’s meant to be said, so when taining the necessary distance to line or context. In this case read gives the strange impression provide a sense of loneliness and however, the connection between
Quiestscapes; Noise, Silence and Redesigning the Public Sonosphere 5 10, 84, 110, 117
open_reorder.indd 5 3/26/06 9:04:17 PM Sterne, Jonathan Urban Media and the Politics of Sound Space ‘The nonag- gressive music deterrent extends the premises ... into the acoustic realm. It manages urban space to promote a sense of safety and control for its preferred occupants’
‘It is designed to discourage people from perceiveing outdoor environments in terms of shared, multiple meanings and uses. In this way, programmed music used outdoors is an attempt to code a space, specifically to code it in terms of social class, race and age.’
‘... the nonaggressive music deterrent is more about a comfort zone for a certain set of middle class visitors to a space.’ (p. 10)
Sterne, Jonathan Urban Media and the Politics of Sound Space ‘... one can make an outdoor environ- ment less hospitable to crimes of opportunity by controlling Bird’s eye view model of Jeroen van Westen’s Groen Wig certain aspects of an environ- ment such as lighting, signage, landscaping, and other measures. ... also aims to make people (that an institution to a large extent the greenspace direction. Van Westen solved this wants) in an environment feel safer and make others around it) is being designed by an dilemma by creating a curving ravine feel unwelcome. ... including artist opens up tremendous possibil- that cuts through the earthen bar- removal of shrubbery around ities for creative expression both rier, almost turning back on it- parking lots and the addition self, such that there is no direct of bright lighting so people visually and aurally to merge with feel more safe going to their the environmental and social issues line of sight through the barrier. cars at night; increased signage surrounding the project. • For van There are angled hills to reflect in and around a university to Westen, the Groene Wig is not just a sound away and vegetation to ab- increase the sense that one is landscape art piece but also a sound sorb it. • As van 11. van Westen, Jeroen. in a powerful institution; or Personal interview. 10 even the bars one sees across piece, and for him all of the essen- Westen describes February, 2006 the middle of benches on bus- tial senses are necessary for creat- his intentions with stops, so that it is impossible this design: “If you walk along the to lay down (and sleep) on ing the experience of place. But for them.’ (p. 10) clarity and coherence the sensorial stream there will be some point that experiences must be connected, which you start to hear the sound. You means connecting the visual with don’t know yet what it is, and then the aural, and this means creating you come around the next curve and places of quiet that make listening then you start to recognize separate possible. He explains that “in the sounds and then you understand, ah, Netherlands, we live in a landscape maybe there are cars. And then again that, seen from the point of view of at the last curve you can see the sound, is blended so much that there cars and where it’s coming from.” 12 are many, many sounds you can’t see. • Thus, the fact that the sound They’re mixed to a blur such that barrier blocks out the noise from you can’t even have an image in your the motorway plays an important role head of what the sound might have in re-tuning the ears of the listen- come from.”11 • A unique challenge er so that the sound of passing au- facing this project is that the tomobiles can be rediscovered. Here greenspace leading up to the sound van Westen is redefining the public barrier is traversed by a natural experience of a particular typi- stream that serves as a flood plain. fied sound (automobile traffic) that Therefore, water must be able to flow can alter the connection of “street through the sound barrier from the noise” with a particular social neighborhood, while sound must be class by bringing it into a dialog prevented from flowing the opposite with the landscape. Quiet places
the content of each part and the only empowers the abstract nature of text. title used is useless, because the text, giving more meaning to the - The lonely voice and the impos- the text is a flow of ideas, concept behind it. In its abstrac- sibility of feedback. thoughts and questions with no tion, this article creates a pos- - The way it addresses the whole predefined order. It is possible sible portrait of the ‘radio body’: world and no one in particular, to use the titles as guidelines, leaving the destination of the but surprise and repetition are - The fragmented body of the text. words (if any) unknown. inescapable. This failed attempt - The constant interferences and to reach something inaccessible repetitions of fragments of the With my text I present a possible
10 4 .5 Muted Sound
open_reorder.indd 6 3/26/06 9:04:18 PM are created in the Groene Wig in signed with particular aesthetic Sterne, Jonathan Urban Me- order to produce a healthier living and socioeconomic dia and the Politics of Sound 14. Manuel, John. Clam- Space ‘Behind these discus- environment for the residents and to objectives. In oring for Quiet: New sions of neighbourhoods, Ways to Mitigate Noise. generate spaces for listening. But his designs van Environmental Health most famously put forward a dialog between this gentrified so- Westen expresses Perspectives volume 113, by Wesley Skogan: signs of number 1. January, 2005. ‘decay’ or ‘blight’ in a neigh- nosphere and the traffic noise of the the idea that noise
feedback to LIGNA’s article. between other events or between These kinds of spaces do not call Using the detached titles as a certain points of time, to step in, out our attention, so it is not starting point, I created foot- interfere, interpose, to be placed urgent to notice them becoming a notes for the original text. or located between other things or choice to do so. I use these fragments of feedback extend between spaces and events.” The same situation happens, for to establish a mute dialogue with Radio intervenes in everyday example, with footnotes: they can the broadcast voice. situations by opening an indistinct add something to your reading, space, but the subtleness of such but you can read the whole text 2 “Intervening means to occur an intervention makes it unnoticed. without noticing or reading them.
Quiestscapes; Noise, Silence and Redesigning the Public Sonosphere 5 11, 14,
open_reorder.indd 7 3/26/06 9:04:18 PM Caroline Basset, ‘How May Movements?’ Mobile Telephones and Transforma- tions in Urban Space ‘Mobile telephones create aural space that is both technological and imaginary. Caroline Basset explores the new spatial economy that is a result of the dynamics between physical and virtual space, between old and new space’ (p. 38)
‘There are two texts which simply alternate: you migh almost believe they had nothing in common, but they are in fact inextricably bound up with each other, as though neither could exist on its own ... but ... only in their fragile over-lapping.’- George Perec (p. 39)
‘I am focussed on a second space, the auditory space opened up through the phone. It is there, into that space, that 4. Transformations of Species of I direct my emotions and my intellectual attention –and it Spaces Iris Tenkink into that space that I seek to heard.’ (p. 39)
Alex de Jong and Marc Schuilenburg, The Audio Hallucinatory Spheres of the City A Pop Analysis of the Urbanization process ”I put a picture up on a wall. Then I formations of species of spaces in ‘... the Living Pod project, ... takes the form of a lunar forget there is a wall. I no longer art. module. The skin of the cap- know what is behind this wall, I no sule contains all th efacilities longer know that in my apartment The division of space: that are present in houses. But above all, the capsule makes there are walls, or that if there We are all limited by space, our it possible for the inhabitants weren’t any walls there would be no movements are ordered by our sur- to move through a hazardous apartment. The wall is no longer roundings, constructed by walls, outside world in the shelter of what delimits and defines the place buildings, cities, urban, or nature. their interior. Independently of its environment the globe where I live. That which separates Every sphere has been designed, can be placed anywhere’ it from the other places where other every horizon altered, our surround- (p. 19) people live. It is nothing more than ings have been shaped and construct- ‘Architecture had to be a support for the picture” ed around us. The space around us expanded to include the - George Perec is made up of divisions, virtual, various aspects of cultural visual, audible. Often these spaces production, such as could be First musings become, invisible, and we are no found in the seething culture of pop and the revolutionary Caroline Bassett’s article on Mobile longer aware of them. We are uncon- technologies of space explora- Telephones and Transformations in sciously surrounded by them. tion. (p. 20) Urban Space, in the Open Magazine number 9, left me wondering about Peter Sloterdijk asserts that: the nature of spaces, and specifical- “spheres are the spaces where people ly the spaces we occupy in our daily actually live. I would like to show lives. Where are the boundaries of that human beings have, till today, space, and how can spaces succeed been misunderstood, because the each other? How is it possible that space where they exist has always we move in multiple spaces at the been taken for granted, without ever same time? These are a few of the being made conscious and explicit.” questions that I’m curious about Sloterdijk goes on to claim that “We and I relate to in my own work as are ourselves space-creating beings an artist. From these questions yet and cannot exist otherwise than in another one arises: How have art- these self-animated spaces.” ists working in different fields used space in there work? Equipped with The visual, virtual, tangible or these questions, I decided to embark audible, they all create space in on an investigation into the trans- their specific way, existing within
The radio space is open, but it city recognition: the train, someone table, so I try to place myself is our choice to step into it. walking without shoes on a wooden in it. I remember what he told Radio intervenes in our everyday floor; cars slowing down; people me last night: “We are here, situations but we also have to talking on the street; bicycles under this T”. Some candles; a intervene in radio’s space. passing by and someone walking on box of tea, a mirror and a “world the snow. (I do I recognize this receiver”: a small, shiny Grundig 3 “Still half asleep I look at sound?) World Receiver, 12 wavebands, led the window and realize it’s still tuning and a carrying case.” snowing. The house is quiet. I I get up and walk around the house. Excerpt from diary close my eyes and start my first R. left an open map of Berlin on the 38, 39, 22 8 .5 Muted Sound
open_reorder.indd 8 3/26/06 9:04:18 PM each other, or in succession of each other, they all occupy a void at a different level. But we are hardly aware of these levels of spaces. We forget the space around us as soon as we become familiar with it. It’s not until we move out of our own security-zones that we begin to ex- perience space.
The awareness of space: Living Pod (1966), de- Kurt Schwitters uses space as col- sign by David Greene, lage of tangible forms. He called Archigram.(p. 21) these collages Merzbau, but they ...Archigram’s use of geo- are often refered to as grottos. The graphical space is less and less large house at Waldhausenstrasse firmly attached to it’s concrete in Hannover had been devided into layout. In Moving City, the four separate apartments. His own whole city has disappeared into a mobile capsule. Must consisting of three rooms at the we draw the conclusion that front of the house. Merzbau began in the city is placeless? For Ar- the studio at the back of the house chigram the city is no longer permanently fixed...’ (p. 20) in 1923. Schwitters created a walk- in environment that looked similar to his assemblages. Using everyday objects, decorating the walls with Kurt Schwitters Merzbau his pictures. He found the inter- relation between them and set them out in lines. These lines grew out out into three dimensional struc- acute awareness of space that is so tures, the structures began to grow evident in the work of Schwitters is and covered the entire room. Eventu- also mirrored in the work of George ally he filled several rooms through Perec. out the house. The house no longer exists as it was destroyed in an air Perec on spaces: ‘Walking city’ (1964) raid in 1943. I decided to visit the Perec uses space not as a collage design by Ron Herron, Hannover, Sprengel museum, and this but as an independent character. Archigram. (p. 22) is my experience in the reconstruc- Space in Perec’s work is not the ‘The spatial economy of mo- tion of the Merzbau: infinite space but the surroundings bile telephony is complex, en- of daily life. In the novel “Life A gaging the dynamics not only of virtual space (the bubble When entering the Merz-room you Users Manual” he uses an intricate into which we speak when we enter a little intimate world, se- pattern, linking places and events make a connection), but also cluded. A light switching on and off parallel with each other, through of physical space as it comes to be penetrated by virtual space: every few minutes altering the mood, a numerologist linked system and a whenever a mobile is used it filling out different structures in time line in which events are re- connects not two spaces but corners your eye has yet missed. corded. He uses a spatial syntax in four or more’ You are drawn physically into the which he arranges and analyses space (p. 39) work making you feel as if you are as a system of choices. Describ- ‘Today the city streets are full an intruder in this very private ing the connection and integration of virtual doorways, opening world. of those spaces, by the means of a to other places. Countless ways through, ways out and map. However, he is not interested ways in to the city space are It is as if you’re walking around in in where the functionality of a constructed and de-con- the virtual space of a Merz paint- room begins or ends. In his idea, an structed by a myriad of mobile ing, yet all around the forms and apartment functions as an unambigu- phone users, who transform as they use.’ (p. 40) structures are tangible. In Schwit- ous succession of a daily procedure. ters’s assemblages, he uses both “The activities of the day cor- ‘Today, mobile phones are at form and text. He is widely known respond to slices of time, and to once a new symbol of a par- ticular kind of contemporary for his sound work in which he uses each slice of time there corresponds freedom to move and act in sound related to language. This how- one room of the apartment.” Perec multiple spaces, and a symbol ever does not describe his work, and writes his novels as a puzzle, not of ‘always on’ accountability/ his texts are also not a background only in terms of the pattern of how surveillance.’ (p. 40) reference to his three-dimensional the narrative is constructed but work, but all together they make up the pursuance of the action as well. the world that he calls Merz. The He compares the maker of the puzzle
4 Radio addresses every one and and a part of the ‘radio body’. lated to me. It’s the sound track no one. Radio speaks for itself As listeners, we have a passive par- of this particular moment, an to itself and never knows if ticipation in this network, waiting assemblage of sounds made out of there is someone listening and for a word, a sound or a wave, to pure coincidence. It has nothing who it is. It is a lonely voice become a part it. to do with this moment or the way talking to lonely ears. I experience it and on most of The radio itself is the network 5 “I am a receiver, a small “on top all, nothing to do with me.” and by turning our “antennas” on of the T” receiver, and the complex –Excerpt from diary we become a part of the network web of sounds I can hear is not re-
Transformations of Species of Spaces 9 39, 40, 41
open_reorder.indd 9 3/26/06 9:04:19 PM ‘Perec stressed the importance with the reader. The action he does lar to Perec’s system, exploring an of jumbled , half forgotton, has been designed before him, even unknown environment according to objects and processes in the production of everyday if he’s not aware of this. The de- the plan the curators had charted life, claiming that this infra- signer (of the puzzle) plans a route for me. Istanbul became not just the ordinary form of life might and the maker follows it. location for the the exhibition, be investigated through ex- periments with numerological but a collection of spaces that were systems.’ (p. 41) In “Life A Users Manual” Perec integrated with the exhibition, describes an apartment building transforming urban space by bringing ‘In Perec’s hands however, the in Paris, linking one room, its art outside the gallery and outsid- inventory is not a reductive codifcation but an expansive inhabitant’s lives and its specific ers into the art. narrative process, reaching habitat, to another. Their lives beyond the pure realm of the differ, their rooms differ but yet Mobile phones logic of the database. (p. 41) they are connected through “acci- In the article “Mobile Telephones Instead, Perec unflods worlds dental coincidents”. Using the same and Transformations in Urban Space,” from their barest essentials so functions of their apartments, mak- featured in Open 9, Caroline Bas- that the inventory functions ing the same actions, without being set links spaces through the use of as a catalyst for a particular kind of distensionor decom- aware of others. The hallway is the a mobile phone. She suggests that pression, for a return to an only anonymous room of the building, when using a mobile phone you enter experience in all its complex- and there the lives of the inhabit- a virtual-audible space. Physically ity. (p. 41) ants intersect. you are for example walking on the Complex spaces can be street while mentally you are at produced from the thinnest George Perec was a member of the this distant place where you have of possible cues, from simple OULIPO, OUvroir de LItterature PO- contact with another bodyless voice. lists, single items, bare techni- cal descriptions of a process, tentielle. In 1960 some French writ- You do not enter this other place. or perhaps from a single act of ers united themselves in a workshop You hang around in a virtual audible calling up a number.’ (p. 41) that became a part of the college de space somewhere in between with only ‘In the case of the mobile use pataphysique. Pataphysica occupies a vague understanding of the loca- involves prioritazing one itself with the notions of the ex- tion of the voice on the other end mode of perception at the traordinary, la sience du particu- of the line. The phone is therefore expense of another. To turn lier and the imaginary solutions for a medium that separates your mental- away from the sensory rich environment of the streets problems, la sience des solutions space from your physical space, and towards the thin thread of talk imaginaires. Playing with the laws in this sense may be similar to a is to prioritize the auditory at of science. Their literary work re- painting. When looking at a picture the expense of the embodied visual world.’ (p. 42) sulted in texts where common sense on a wall, the space you occupy is a and the extarodinairy, play with division of the virtual space in the ‘(Micheal Bull) ... argues that reality.The OULIPO uses rules, form picture, but unlike the case of the personal stereo re-organizes and structures as a foundation for mobile phone, there is no interac- urban space, overlaying it with a new and overwhelming their texts. tion. Sound is unique among the five aesthetic: Sound ‘engulfs the Many of the members of the OULIPO senses in that it has the greatest spatial’. The prioritazation of have been working on sound poems power to create a sense of place. the auditory space achieved through the Walkman allows and issues of space on paper. They users to reaestheticize their remain a lasting influence on many The audible space everyday experience of urban artists who deal with concepts and The acoustic environment created by space as a whole.’ (p. 42) realities of space. sound or, soundscape, is a vir- tual, spatially manipulated sphere. City space, Istanbul Sound requires a moment in space, The Istanbul Biennale in 2005 was and each effect moves in time. Mov- focused on the awareness of space, ing, transported through air, earth and how we relate to it. I found or material, evoking a presence works that attempted to integrate of things or beings in space. The art into the spaces and spheres of audible room works like a collage. the city to be particularly in- The audible space separates or con- teresting. Abandoned warehouses, trols us in our movements, but we factories, and an apartment building are also a part of these spheres. became locations for works rather Our actions, our presence, are an than the traditional white place- immediate interference. We al- less space of the art gallery. With ter and shape them by simply being site-specific works locations became there. In the performance/instal- very much part of the artwork, from lation “Seedbed” Vitto Acconci used a busy high streets, to back alleys, sound and the space of the gallery and the docks. With the addresses to construct a contained, controlled plotted on my map of Istanbul, I sonosphere. This work consisted of a started my journey, in a way simi- sloping floor around which visitors
6 “Who is out there?” When I or elements; the outcome depends on lation of listeners? And could turn the radio on I open a win- the configuration of influences at they define a temporary shape for dow, but to where? I don’t know the time. What would be the outcome radio? who is talking to me. It can be of a constellation of listeners? a recorded voice, a dead voice “The stars of a constellation are “I said ‘hello’ into the phone, or my next-door neighbor. On this lonely independent fragments, that but it went silent and then the side I am part of the constella- when seen together from the earth, flash hit. A plastic ‘Simpsons’ tion of listeners. A constella- suggest an image or symbol.” What cup from Burger King melted side- tion is an arrangement of parts would be the symbol of a constel- ways on the counter; the black
6, 88 10 .5 Muted Sound
open_reorder.indd 10 3/26/06 9:04:19 PM From: marianne viero 2. Loock, Ulrich Times Subject: a source to be heard? Square Max Neuhaus’s Sound Work in New York City ‘Max Sent : Wednesday, March 1, 2006 5:53 PM Neuhaus’s Sound Work was To: max neuhaus first installed on Times Square in 1977. ... Without being visually or materially present, On Mar 1, 2006 5:53 PM, Marianne Veiro wrote: Neuhaus creates what he calls an individual and authentic Dear Max, experience of place.( p. 82)
‘Neuhaus’s Sound Work on I’m in a waiting room in Copenhagen, Denmark. It’s quiet here. It’s Times Square ... is a work me and just a few others. I don’t know what they are waiting for, whose material is sound. It is I don’t know them, and I don’t know if I share anything with these a work without a visible or people except for the waiting. And the space. tangible object.’ ( p. 83) ‘The location of Max The room is rather small. Four walls and a ceiling that seems too Neuhaus’s work on Times high. A few rows of chairs balled to the floor. And it’s quiet. Or Square is a seemingly unused and useless area between maybe it is not. The tick of the clock is the first thing I notice. Broadway and 7th Avenue Then the sound of a body shifting position and finger nails scratch- and 45th and 46th Street, a ing an irritated spot on the cheek. All movements are executed in deserted traffic island on the northern edge of a square that a timid manner that seem to carry a message. Keep still, do not to is otherwise developed and upset the silence, and it will be almost like none of us are here. exploited to the full.’ ( p. 85) Then a distant street noise reaches me from far away. And finally the sound of the room itself. Now that I hear it I cannot believe I ‘...(Neuhaus) discovered this strange space and recognizing didn’t notice it at first. It’s a very distinct sound, though hard to its potential, had applied to describe. It’s not exactly a ring, or a rumbling, or a buzz. Also, I the NYC Transit Authority cannot figure out its source. And that makes it strange, for sounds for permission to use the sub- way ventilation vaults under do come from somewhere, don’t they? the traffic island to install the necessary technical system.’ And it makes me think of you, Max. And the sounds you create. At ( p. 85) Times Square in New York the sounds come from under the ground. This ‘Nowhere on Times Square I know. What I’m not so sure of is whether that makes them sounds of there is a plaque or sign or any the underground. Or are they yours? You have compared them with the other indication of this work, reverberation of huge bells. Is that because you like huge bells or its author and its sponsors. Anyone who actually notices is it because you like reverberation? Come to think of it, the sound the work either knows about in the waiting room also seems like a reverberation of something. it already or suddenly discov- Though I’m not sure of what (it might be the endless hours of wait- ers the strange sound coming ing). I guess what I’m wondering is how much the origin of a sound from beneath the grating.’ ( p. 85) reveals its nature or is it rather, how much a sound reveals about its source? ‘Max Neuhaus describes Times Square as follows: ‘The work is an invisible unmarked Please do not hesitate to share your thoughts on this matter. block of sound on th e north end of the island. Its sonority, I’ll be waiting. a rich harmonic sound texture resembling the after ring of large bells, is an impossibil- Yours sincerely, ity within it’s context. Many Marianne who pass through it, however, dismiss it as an unusual ma- chinery sound from below the ground. For those who find it and accept the sound’s impossibility, though, the island becomes a different place, separate, but including its surroundings. These people, having no wayof knowing that it has been de- liberately made, usually claim the work as a place of their own discovering.’ ( p. 85)
plastic frame of the TV softened sparkling, like tinsel on a Christ- and borders. This information is its edges and began dissolv- mas tree, and the blender crashed powerful and exchanging this it ing. I looked at my hand and saw into the wall and the Post-It notes through communication is empower- that the telephone was turning on the fridge ignited and then I was ing. When we cannot grasp the to mud in my palm, and I saw a dead.” – Excerpt from “The Wrong limits or cannot understand our bit of skin rip off like strips Sun”, Douglas Coupland subject, we feel lost and scared of chicken fajita. And then the because this means we are loosing pulse occurred. The kitchen win- 7 To control we must understand the control To avoid chaos, the scary dow blew inward, all bright and subject and be aware of its limits deep sea we can’t grasp with our
Dear Max 11 12, 117
open_reorder.indd 11 3/26/06 9:04:20 PM could walk. He would lay underneath previously did not exist, and sound the floor listening to their foot- is the most powerful material for steps and masturbate, calling out “I achieving this. Sound can transport did it for you, I did it with you, I the listener and create spheres of have done it to you.” In this way, space, and it’s not until we move visitors suddenly found themselves out of our own security-zones that in a sonosphere of the artist’s we begin to experience space. sexual fantasies. Acconci’s work is often very forceful, almost raping his audience. He harnesses the pow- er of the unexpected, for instance with sound coming from a place one would least expect, and enveloping the spectator into a space entirely Cushicle (1966), de- controlled by the artist. sign by Micheal Webb, Archigram. (p.21) Virtual space Currently at the Stedelijk Museum in ‘The inventory allows for the systematic collection and Amsterdam there is a show entitled ordering of objects, but also “Next Level. Art, Games and Real- guarantees that the list so col- ity.” The presented works are vir- lected will itself be productive, will have new implications. tual video game installations and The space produced through films, showing a new inclination to the inventory, the space pro- bring this aspect of popular culture duced through the process of into the space of the art gallery. use, is in this way also ‘space as invention’. As Perec said The exhibition spaces all refer to once, space is a doubt. (p. 46) the virtual spaces of video games. It is not until you turn a corner ‘It might be addressed through consideration of the that you really enter this game affective priority one kind world and you find yourself inside of space claims over another the virtual world of a video game. (that is without specific refer- It‘s more a show then an exhibition. ence to the question of aesthetic qualities of that And it seems totally out of place in space), particularly if these the serious atmosphere of a museum, claims are not based on what and that’s why I enjoy it. In my own the space contains but on the communicational experience work, I often pursue the unexpected offered; on the process the or the inappropriate. For a moment mobile enables, the forms you might even wonder: is this art? of connections it opens up.’ The jolt of incongruence and the (p. 43) question of appropriateness makes ‘Here is another way in which the spectator suddenly aware of the virtual and physical spaces are space itself as well as what is in inter-dependent: attention on one stems from neglect in (as it. well as to) another space, and relates to it.’ (p. 43-44) Concluding space: My investigation into spaces comes Ulrich Loock, Times Square Max Neuhaus’s Sound not be about the void so much as Work in New York City ‘If Perec describes “rather what there we define space as the pure is round about or inside it.” The condition of the possibility to juxtapose the manifold, we spaces we occupy, the spheres that define place as a spatial entity encompass us, are usually experi- that emerges only with the enced only subconsciously. Art- real relationship of volumes ists can attempt to integrate sound to one another. Max Neuhaus perceives sounds as bodies and public space as with many of in this sense, forming a place the works at the 2005 Biennale in through their relation to one Istanbul. They can also completely another. Where the sound can be heard, where its place is, construct sonic spaces, as with the is determined in contrast to works of Vitto Acconci and the video where it is not to be heard.’ game installations currently show- (p. 91) ing at the Stedelijk. Artists are in a unique position to bring the spectator into a dialogue, a con- flict, or an awareness of spaces that
complex means of thinking, we not work in ‘radio space’ with its the already existing sounds. have maps, plans, schemes and different context and rules. This also happens in the world of strategies and we talk, write and images. We cannot control the en- think about these maps, plans, 8 It is possible to record fragments vironment in which the image will schemes and strategies. The radio of the radio body, in an attempt be seen, who is seeing it and the voice is uncontrollable, you to analyse and control it, but the possible connections with other never what it will produce and second it is reproduced, it will im- images. When it comes to sound it the connections are unlimited. mediately get out of our hands, dive is even more difficult to predict Our maps, plans and strategies do back into its own world and mix with anything. Every association of
21, 41, 42, 46 12 .5 Muted Sound
open_reorder.indd 12 3/26/06 9:04:20 PM Alex de Jong and Marc Schuilenburg, The Audio- Hallucinatory Spheres of the City, ‘Detroit techno hence drew lines between a given impression and an idea that is not yet present. The distinct flavour was created by linking hallmarks of the sound to the city. After the city’s loss of a coherent visual unity, the techno sounds created a collective auditive envelope.’ (p. 25)
‘The social space of Detroit techno was related to dimen- sions of direct experience and perception. Not only did the rhythm make you dance spasmodically like a robot, but the music made the city into an immediate experience without all its inhabitants having to come together 5. Always a Combination of Private physically.’ (p. 25) and Public: Justin Bennett on Field Recordings and City Maps Dagmar Kriegesmann
Justin Bennett (UK, 1964) dedi- more about computers. We didn’t have cates his life and work to sound a computer in the sound studio at and noise in the broadest sense of the Sheffield City Polytechnic.” Af- these words. In his artistic work he ter two years of studying with Paul focuses on the noises of the street. Berg, Konrad Boehmer, and Joel Ryan, Advertisement for Was this not a kind of initial among others, he stayed at the De- the Bad Boy fashion definition of rock music? Indeed, partment of Sonology for seven years label. The model is Bennett comes from Sheffield, one as a tutor. Nevertheless, he felt owner Sean Combs, of the breeding places of UK rock a bit tangled with the sonological better know as P. Diddy, the name under music in the eighties, the cradle of approach of music: “Sonology was which he records as a such illustrious bands as Cabaret so focused on music and composition hip-hop artist. Voltaire, Clock DVA, and The Hu- from a kind of traditional point man League. Currently Sheffield has of view. There was no room to do been influencing rock history again sound art. It was not even accept- - the victory march of the Arctic able. Sound art was simply seen as Monkeys started there. Bennett is bad music. So I needed to get out still very interested in rock music, to do something else. I actually adding, “my last purchase was Jamie went to the Jan van Eyck Academy in Lidell, but I did not listen to it Maastricht. There I got the oppor- Advertisement for yet.” However, his artistic prac- tunity to investigate the relation- the South Pole tice originally emerged in perfor- ship between sound and image. Since fashion lable with mance and making musical instru- then I have always been doing things the members of the ments. In particular, he developed with recording the outside world, hip-hop group Mabb Deep as models. The his own percussion instruments and sometimes with video or photography, advertisement also used to experiment with tape manipu- sometimes with just sounds.” promotes Mobb Deep’s lations and synthesizers. Since that time he developed his Amerikaz Nightmare In the late eighties he moved from notion of the noise map, with which album. Sheffield to The Hague to study so- he brings the public art domain of nology at the Royal Conservatory. sound and noise into museums and Bennett said, “I was doing a lot of other venues. He likes to play field things, which had to do with sound recordings and noises of the out- and space. Because I knew about the side world in the privacy of an art possibilities with digital sound space, but he also wants to com- and manipulation, I wanted to learn ment on how the sounds are related
sounds or situation created by cidental encounters or coincidences 10 Radio is a lonely experience, this association is always a in our everyday sound experience, but the medium of radio creates surprise. we are constantly receiving sound shared networks and constella- data trough our two bands “stuck tions of listeners. What do you 9 We are prepared to allow any- on a single head”. Silence is an bring to this party of listeners thing when it comes to sound and impossible state. (Maybe it’s not enjoying the same radio space? consequently, when it comes to even desirable, but I can’t be sure You bring your solitude. By al- radio. Used to expect any kind about this) lowing the space introduced by of assemblages, any kind of ac-
Always a Combination of Private and Public 13 21, 43, 44, 91
open_reorder.indd 13 3/26/06 9:04:21 PM ‘The musical sounds and to their environment. Bennett is My intention is to make a believable noises which Sloterdijk des- constantly dancing the line between experience. You have the feeling ignates, using a term from the Canadian composer Murray public and private art domains. In that this is a recording of a real Schafer, as the sonosphere of the autumn of 2005 he had an impres- soundscape. And the only thing that the group, pull techno fans sive solo exhibition in the GEM, a isn’t real, is the fact that it is into the interior of a psycho- acoustic space.’ (p. 25) museum of contemporary art in The changing too quickly. 24 hours be- Hague. He has also had other recent comes twelve minutes. ‘The way the social processes presentations in Scarborough (UK), The original idea was to sample the actualize a spatiality becomes Leidsche Rijn, Guangzhou, and Barce- sounds of different cities and com- clear in relation to the his- tory of the popular culture lona. pare them with each other. In doing of techno. The term ‘techno’ Bennett has lived in the Nether- it, I have been realizing that it originated from The Third lands for 17 years, and so when I sat doesn’t work. It is an interesting Wave (1980), a book by the American futurologist Alvin down to talk with him on the 3rd of thing to do an objective way of com- Toffler.’ (p. 27) March, 2006, he asked “shall we do paring. It is really about recording the interview in Dutch or English?” sound in physical situations. For ‘The spacial framework of Bennett: In the beginning my work instance, I make a recording here the video game offered new possibilities to meet one was based on a fascination with field on a roof and then find a similar another in different ways. recording and being out to capture roof in another city, in Paris. But The framework provided an something. Compare it with taking there, it is very difficult to find open system of connections...’ (p. 27) photographs – acoustic photographs buildings of the same height. There of a distinguished place. It became are either two stories or there are more focused on place and taking eight stories. And where should it something from a place, using it to be, in the center, or in a banlieu? create a new place. That is how I It doesn’t make sense. You can’t do often see an installation: creating that. It is completely subjective. a place, in which people are able That makes me also realize how sub- to stay and experience. Being here jective my work is. in Europe it was so much easier to travel. Soon I started to think of Beirut Story the circumstances of a sound. What A subjective look at the city is al- differentiates sound? Every city ways completely filtered through my has a typical sound, just as some ears and decisions. If I am working countries can be related to an ex- with field recordings, I am mak- traordinary color. Is it something ing a lot of different decisions. cultural, or is it, for instance, Let’s take, for instance, this piece just about the weather? I got deeply called Beirut Story. The Beirut involved in these kinds of ques- piece is a recording in an empty tions. apartment with open windows. You I used to drive often to Barcelona, hear a lot from the street, which is which takes two days. And there is a the quite violent sound of people moment when you get to the Mediter- handling big drills and breaking ranean, when you notice the light up the road. I am walking through just changes even in the middle of this apartment with just two micro- winter. It is completely differ- phones connected to my ears. That’s ent. I think the climate affects the it. There is only one edit - just architecture, also because of the to make it a bit shorter - and it history of the structural design hasn’t been mixed at all. there. I think it is more because of Here again you can see that the mo- architecture that cities sound dif- ment of recording is a very deci- ferent. It is less about the sounds sive one. Sometimes I do things more you find in them. Simply said: you objectively, for example, the way I find cars everywhere now. might leave a microphone. I always I have been working with the idea try to catch something. I record for that cites have their own distinct quite a long time and then go to the sound. In the GEM I presented this tape to find what I want. But usually piece of a 24-hours recording in it is about being there and listen- The Hague. I have been doing these ing, having an engagement with the recordings in different cities. This field of sounds. 24-hour recording is a collage. I Back to Beirut. When I am walk- record for about a minute every half ing in the space you hear that sound hour. Then I go through it. I order changing. You hear me going away. the sounds in time. Then I choose In fact, the most important ele- the bits I want, fit them together. ment is the voice on the radio that
radio, you are sharing your own it with images, but it’s not enough, available” –Excerpt from “The monologue. because I can never grasp the whole Future of Radio Art”, LIGNA of it. It’s too wide, to diverse and 11 ” I’m listening: A body of my receivers don’t belong to the 13 “Private property is the sounds. Speaks to me trough my same universe. We don’t speak the best means of control.” Almost two receivers and through the same language.” everything is controlled and pri- just found “world receiver”. It’s –Excerpt from diary vatised and belongs to someone. always here, even when I think Do we own our objects, our ideas I’m not listening. I can describe 12 “Some frequencies are still or even our friends? Some things
21, 41, 42, 46 14 .5 Muted Sound
open_reorder.indd 14 3/26/06 9:04:21 PM Announcement of an interview with Jay-Z in XXL Magazine. The chain is studded with diamonds and bears the logo of Jay-Z’s record company Roc-A- Fella. ‘The Chain Re- mains’ refers to the lyrics of the number Diamonds Remix.
Advertisement for rims in King Magazine Justin Bennett, overview of the exhibition at GEM, Den Haag 2005. (video “Resonant Sys- (July/August 2005). tem”, installation “soundhouse” and “cityscape” drawing) photo jb 2005. Below: left: Beirut-Story (this is the image that is projected in the piece beirut story) photo: jb 2004 right: Recording location for Sundial - Paris photo jb 2005. ‘Metropolis is for Davies the ultimate proof that a city that is subject to physical laws can also be evoked by the ephem- eral character of a soundscape: “Techno City” was the electronic village.’ (p. 28)
‘Social space refers to the spatial characteristics of spacial processes. From this perspective, the question of being together in the city and the place of the city becomes ever more relevent. If sounds draw a boundary between inside and outside, and create an ‘immune system’, we are obliged to rethink the rela- tionship between the different spatialities in the city.’ (p. 28)
can’t be owned, and the ‘radio dissection, analysis and cat- body’ belongs to this group of 15 Art works belong to a universe egorization through language or things. of images and sounds that, like the other required means. This is not ‘radio body’, are uncontrollable necessarily prejudicial, because 14 The ‘radio body’ belongs to because of their variable nature. in a variable universe anything the group of things incompatible Language is used to fixate and con- can and will be used as raw mate- with language so; a definition of trol this variable quality, like I rial for further experiments and its limits is always an impossi- am trying to do now with this text. surprises. ble, or at least difficult, task. Radio Art will also be object of
Always a Combination of Private and Public 15 21, 43, 44, 91
open_reorder.indd 15 3/26/06 9:04:22 PM Amy Plant, Valley Vibes, ‘The Vibe Detecting Service Tool looks a little like a cross between a giant ghetto blaster and an ice cream trolley, and functions as a portable karaoke set, radio station, and conferencing set. It’s a simple design, built from gleaming alluminium, small enough to fit in a domestic doorway, tall enough to stand or sit behind.’ (p. 131)
21.10.98 Private Poetry Broadcast, by O’Matsu Hana.
‘As a tool for researching this area, the detector was used by individuals and groups to stage events in public and private spaces, gently entering into a diverse range of ter- Justin Bennett, Ostiense, Rome. Recording location for Sundial - Rome. photo jb 2005. ritories.’ (p. 131)
27.11.99 Fund-rais- ing party for Motor Neuron Dissease, by Kieth Poli
‘What can we learn about the area from this collection of vibes or atmospheres and what is the effect of re-injecting them back into the environment from where they came? Each recording stands as a trace of an action, a piece of cultural production: folk or mainstream, a protest, a rehearsal or a simple expres- sion. These ethereal layers of sound represent the diversity Justin Bennett, the presentation of Sundial-Paris at the Centre Culturel Suisse. of an area as they randomly photo: jb 2005 uncover some of its richness.’ (p. 132)
16 “Incorporating the promise of fading without a trace; forever universal communication bound crossing boundaries but with together with the more immediate uncertain destination; capable of Sónia Ribeiro 2006 prospect of irreversible decay, the most intimate communion and the radio body (still in pieces, the most sudden destruction.” still in the making) is a com- Excerpt from Out of the Dark: References: posite of opposites: speaking to Notes on the Nobodies of Radio The Future of Radio Art, LIGNA, everyone abstractly but no one Art, Gregory Whitehead Open no9 in particular; ubiquitous, but The Multiplication of The Street,
21, 41, 42, 46 16 .5 Muted Sound
open_reorder.indd 16 3/26/06 9:04:23 PM I had with me. It is an Arabic story loudspeakers around the space. What that is so distorted that you can was really interesting to see was only guess that it’s a story about how different people reacted. Some something. That was exactly right people were walking into the space because I don’t understand Arabic. and they were listening and stand- I let this voice lead me around ing there for a while. Some even got the apartment. There is a story a chair. When other people walked and there is a walk and you get the in, they were looking at the walls feeling you are really traveling, though there was nothing on the even though it is one space. Then walls. They would walk out to the I combine it with this still im- next room where there was a video age, which is the projected image, playing. Even though those sounds actually made in the same apartment, were really loud, they wanted to see but looking out of the window. You something. actually see the window frame in the It was clear that there were two 11.12.99 Bingo Club Pensioners Christmas shot looking towards another build- sorts of people. Almost nobody was party, by Cranbrook ing opposite it. The window is an in between. It shows you how some Community Education older window. You can look from inside people really listen and other Centre. to outside, but you are also looking people don’t. from old Beirut to new Beirut. It was a kind of conscious decision It was all about the idea of being not to show anything visual. I did inside looking out, and the combina- have some visual material, which I tion of an image through a window, could have shown, but I decided not hearing things inside which are to, probably because the one would really coming from outside. It is become a kind of illustration of the always a combination of private and other. And I am not so interested public. And you hear me as well. You in that. I am more taken with, for hear me walking around and breath- instance, in the Beirut piece, how ing. It is quiet an intimate thing the image and the sound start to to listen to, especially on head- work together and turn into a kind phones. There are always different of fiction. But definitely the person dualities in the piece. That makes who experiences the presentation the combination work. It exposes always completes the piece. If you the conflicting feelings you have as play a recording into a real space 20.08.00 Fun Day, by well. with loudspeakers, sound is a field the Atlee Centre. Basically, what I am doing is of vibration. There is nothing to ‘O’Matsu is an upcoming bringing the sense of tracks and see, but it is physical. Without the local poet who is keen to get a artworks in the private view of the listener in the room then the piece career going though publish- ing her poetry and perform- public space into the galleries and is still present, but somehow less. ing...O’Matsu wanted to use museums etc. - but while maintain- The experienced end-result is the the Vibe Detector to record ing a private space – my subjective most important, though its creation a demo tape of her readings. view. is a crucial process as well. While With the help of one of the market traders, we pushed the I am working on a piece, it usually Vibe Detector to her ground Sundial – Paris changes. The concept could be very floor flat and parked it outside You can never really predict what fixed in the beginning but it usually her front door. She read her poems from her bathroom you are going to have to deal with transforms into something else. In sink, from where they were in terms of sounds, in having con- the Beirut piece the moment of the broadcast through the Vibe trol over the space. If you do some- recording was very important. But I Detector across the estate.’ thing outside you have to compose decided to present the sound piece (p. 132) with environmental sounds in mind. together with an image. In fact, a They have to become a part of the huge part of how I make something piece. It does make a difference with sound is about choosing how to if it is outside in a public space present it. But when I am working on or not. If you go into a museum you the piece, listening is a big part know you are going to see something. of it – listening in the first place Every way of presenting sound has and listening while I am making it some kind of visual form and that is and listening in the end. an important part of it as well. The 24-hour piece called Sundial- Paris, which I showed in the Center Culturel Suisse in Paris, was pre- sented in a completely empty room, completely lit from above, with four
Dirk Van Weelden, Open no9 Out of the Dark: Notes on the Nobod- certain points of time, to step Faking It: Experimental Radio and ies of Radio Art, Gregory Whitehead, in, interfere, interpose, to be its Audience, Martin Spinelli, UbuWeb Papers placed or located between other Resonance vol. 10 things or extend between spaces The power of Radio Sound, Jo Tac- **From here down is visual filler the and events.” chi, Resonance vol. 10 text is too short at the moment*** Radio intervenes in everyday Impossible Voices, Unmakeable Be------situations by opening an indis- ings, Gregory Whitehead, UbuWeb 2 “Intervening means to occur tinct space, but the subtleness Papers between other events or between of such an intervention makes it
Always a Combination of Private and Public 17 21, 43, 44, 91
open_reorder.indd 17 3/26/06 9:04:24 PM LIGNA, The Future of Radio Art A Monologue for a Broadcast Voice: ‘...radio intervenes in every- day situations. it produces a difference, its sonic waves are changing the space.’ (p. 111)
Dirk van Weelden, The Multiplication of the Street New Impulses for Radio ‘...the discrepancy between symbolic excess and the lack of sensory stimuli activates the imagination. We have to ‘finish off’ the radio. We add ideas of spaces, situations, faces, landscapes and smells to the words, voices, sounds and music on the radio. We become accomplices.” (p. 73) 6. Radio Becoming Art Sarah Washington
Perhaps radio art has never existed. I think I have experienced broad- What I mean is that narrow definitions, casts where there are many artists institutional styles, and art tradi- in a radio studio in a capital city, tions do not sit very well with ra- broadcasting to perhaps one single dio’s intimate and accessible nature. soul. I can’t say if it happened, but The fact that for most of the decades in the early days of Resonance 104.4FM of its existence radio production was in London it was at times surely more for the most part kept out of reach than likely. For me this possibil- of all but the most privileged, and ity turned on its head the regular that it has been possible for ordinary assumptions about radio as a one-to- people to appropriate the medium only many model of dissemination. It simply by breaking the law, does not alter reinforced the sense of intimacy, both the situation of its inherent acces- in the studio and within the projected sibility. (A small radio transmit- receiving environment. It was clear ter can easily be built from a kit or that now artists in London finally had homemade circuit design for a few eu- access to radio we could begin afresh ros, equipment for a broadcast studio with our ideas about bringing art to is not complicated, pushing up a fader the radio. We had no tradition to rest enables ‘instant radio’.) The previ- upon, no models to copy, and little ous restrictions against access have experience of making radio. We also channeled the development of radio had no quotas to meet, and no bureau- art in specific directions. Now that cracy to encumber us. It is true that numerous others are reclaiming their we were inspired by the work of other rightful share of radio space, it is radio stations, but there was enough perhaps finally time for the medium to perception of a clean slate to engen- come of age. der a wonderfully open approach to making radio. I won’t claim that more If radio art has previously been a than a handful of people truly rose to living concept why are so many are this artistic challenge, but never- currently asking the question: “What theless this is the essence of the is Radio Art?”. It is becoming clear vision that underpins all the workings to me that either we don’t already of the radio station. know, or it is somehow indefinable. In Sitting in my front room in London any case we need to unburden ourselves and tinkering with a small transmit- of dual weights: trying to reserve a ter that I use in live music perfor- seriousness for our topic, and marking mance, I eventually discovered that it out in identifiable terrain. the signal it produced completely
unnoticed. These kinds of spaces The radio space is open, but it is The house is quiet. I close my do not call out our attention, so our choice to step into it. Radio eyes and start my first city it is not urgent to notice them intervenes in our everyday situa- recognition: the train, someone becoming a choice to do so. tions but we also have to intervene walking without shoes on a wooden The same situation happens, for in radio’s space. floor; cars slowing down; people example, with footnotes: they can talking on the street; bicycles add something to your reading, 3 “Still half asleep I look at the passing by and someone walking on but you can read the whole text window and realize it’s still snow- the snow. (I do I recognize this without noticing or reading them. ing. sound?)
21, 41, 42, 46 18 .5 Muted Sound
open_reorder.indd 18 3/26/06 9:04:24 PM From: marianne viero ‘The sound has fairly clearly Subject: ready? or not determined limits that cor- respond to the size of the Date: Tuesday, March 14, 2006 10:06 AM grating. This explains the To: max neuhaus listener’s unequivocal sense of transition from the area where the sound cannot be heard to On Mar 14, 2006 10:06 AM, Marianne Veiro wrote: an area where it can be heard, where one finds onesself in Dear Max, the area of the sound, being surounded by and immersed Thanks for your quick reply and your good advice on how to continue. in the sound. On the other I have listened to the recording of the conversation between you and hand, this means that it is im- possible to perceive the sound Looch just like you wanted me to. ‘from outside’. Even though it possesses the ‘objectivity’ I’m sorry that I’m only getting back to you now, more then a week af- of something situated outside ter I received your mail, but so much has happened. After sending you an individual’s consciousness, and as such, is an object of the last mail I kept on thinking about the piece at Times Square, and sensual perception, it differs in the end my curiosity got too big for me to carry around. So when a fundamentally from visible friend offered me accommodation in New York I went for it. And it is and tangible things that can true what they say: everything is bigger there. The houses are taller, be grasped from a distance as discrete objects.’ ( p. 85-89) the streets wider and I have never seen such big servings of food and so many cars before. And the sounds. Everything is so loud! Even the ‘Where the sound can be small sounds that you are not supposed to notice feel like a roar and heard in Times Square, there kept me awake at night. I was surprised with the volume of your piece is a zone of the sound.’ (p. 90) as well. I heard it all the way from across the street. I hadn’t ex- pected that, and it was strange to see that almost nobody else took notice of it - how could they not? During all the time I spend on Times Square (and I went there daily at different hours) I only saw one Japanese tourist pointing through the gratings before continuing photographing his companion against the illuminated backdrop of bill- boards. Though it was only for a moment, he did recognize the sounds coming from underneath his feet as something out of the ordinary, not from the subway, not from a machine, not from anything in fact.
The experience of the work stayed between me and this gentleman ex- clusively, two people out of several hundreds who all went to Times Square in the period that I was there. I think there is a certain Max Neuhaus, Times beauty in that, but there is something I still haven’t told you. In Square, 1977. Coloured fact I’m not really sure whether I should tell you at all, because it pencil on paper, 74.5 is almost a bit tragic, but here it comes: I’m don’t know if I actu- x 96 cm; 74.5 x 79 cm. Collection Dia Art ally did experience your piece. Of course I experienced it in some foundation (p. 86) way. After all, I was there, I walked up and down the grates, stared longingly through them, listened to the sounds escaping them, lis- tened to the sounds around me. But still I don’t really think I got a relationship with the work closer than the one I had from just reading about it. I was never touched by the physicality of it. And I wonder why. Maybe it’s because New York has such an overwhelming impact on someone just visiting for a little while that the subtleties of the piece simply drown underneath the many impressions that need process- ing. Maybe it’s because of Times Square. I honestly think it’s a hor- rible place that just makes me want to leave (was it already like that when you first installed the work?). Or maybe it has to do with this thing you describe in your conversation with Looch as being ready for Max Neuhaus, Times art, ready to understand. Could it be that I just wasn’t ready? I felt Square, 1977. Coloured ready, but maybe I was not. You say in the conversation that it is pencil on paper, 74.5 impossible to teach someone to get ready. Still I was hoping you might x 96 cm; 74.5 x 79 cm. Collection Dia Art give some hints to what it’s like once you are there. foundation (p. 87) I know I ought to have asked you this while I was still in New York, but I didn’t dare and it is only now in the belly of the airplane, where so many things can go so terribly wrong anyway that I am getting my guts together and putting the thought into words.
Yours sincerely, Marianne
I get up and walk around the mirror and a “world receiver”: a someone listening and who it is. house. small, shiny Grundig World Receiver, It is a lonely voice talking to R. left an open map of Berlin 12 wavebands, led tuning and a car- lonely ears. on the table, so I try to place rying case.” The radio itself is the network myself in it. Excerpt from diary and by turning our “antennas” on I remember what he told me last we become a part of the network night: “We are here, under this 4 Radio addresses every one and no and a part of the ‘radio body’. T”. one. Radio speaks for itself to As listeners, we have a passive Some candles; a box of tea, a itself and never knows if there is participation in this network,
Dear Max 19 21, 43, 44, 91
open_reorder.indd 19 3/26/06 9:04:25 PM ‘Radio is infiltrating spaces obliterated one of the major TV chan- more and more people are becoming in- with uncanny duplicated nels. There was still a picture, but terested in designing their own radio voices. Radio is opening a ghostly space. For sure, this it was purely zigzagging interference wherever and however they want it. dispersed space is nearly lines moving all across the screen. I Some listen in to far distant galactic forgotten.’ (p. 112) should think that the inhabitants of radio waves, others harness domestic ‘Radio addresses people not at least 100 homes would potentially radio signals for artistic purpose. as a gathered mass, but as dis- be affected while I was testing things It is all unquantifiable insubstanti- persed individuals.’ (p. 112) out. Maybe they regarded it as some ality - therefore magic - with radio sort of ethereal video art, or some waves, and because of this there is so ‘Radio can be something scary. It is a production other welcome respite from the barking much to discover and take unexpected where you never know what of their substitute-reality box. More delight in. Any thoughtful utiliza- it produces. Something is likely it pissed them off. Either way, tion of the medium’s apparatus is happening at the same time at different places.’ (p. 114) the use of radio waves can have vari- awash with unanswerables. ous unseen ramifications. ‘Radio blurs the boundaries If we don’t already know what radio between the social and the The radio landscape of Europe is art is, then we have never experienced aesthetic.’ (p. 118) becoming more visible. Amongst other it, or perhaps never imagined it. If ‘To be honest I don’t mind initiatives, we have an active com- it is somehow indefinable we should repeating myself. I like it. I munity of independent radio stations celebrate this refusal to be pinned am radio.’ (p. 119) called Radia who are trying to connect down and quantified as a favourable up the people, the projects, and the respite from the universal trend to ideas that have some unity of ambi- box every aspect of culture into sub- tion to produce new art for the radio. mission. I see little to be gained in Mobile Radio - a touring radio project detailing my personal experiences of set up by Knut Aufermann and myself, radio art - I prefer to actively par- goes searching for people, material, ticipate in radio art obfuscation by and places to represent radiophonin- refusing to help you pin it down. cally and feed into the network. While LIGNA. Dial the Signals! travelling we also perform feedback A lack of pressure to conform, lack of The grid of phones was displayed as an music with homemade radio transmit- expectations to meet, lack of re- abstract field of ters and other self-built devices, strictions of possibilities, perhaps light dots. (p. 121) and we encourage others to build their lack of an audience too - all this own. There is enthusiasm and dedica- encourages you to leap into radio with tion for these practices oozing from a openness and confidence. Perhaps radio small corner of each city we visit. art can only occur in such rarefied atmospheres. Once you have a public Encouraged by the astronomer Patrick or an official to answer to, or ratings Moore, I recorded the effect on radio to maintain, you can only hope to be waves of a solar eclipse. The premise a crowd-pleaser or to become insti- was simple: radio waves travel further tutionalized. If that’s not what you at night due to changes in atmospheric want, then jump into your own radio. conditions caused by the absence of Together our projects will speak for ultraviolet light, therefore if you themselves. (See page 30 for list of tune in to a station that you can usu- reference links) ally only receive at night you should be able to hear it during the brief Where is Radio Art? Knut Aufermann passing of the solar eclipse. Except I The question ‘What is radio art?’ got something else, a kind of whir- seems too difficult to answer, given ring sound, a self-oscillation. This that neither ‘art’ nor ‘radio’ can simple sound has fuelled my inter- be defined easily. Perhaps a trick est and inspired my practice in radio borrowed from the world of science production and live performance ever can offer a new approach towards a since. definition. When physicists come up with questions that are too complex All over the world, small artistic ra- to answer, they use heuristic meth- dio projects have surfaced, submerged, ods to locate a field in which the and continue to transform ideas about possible solution is most likely to radio. Inspired by everything from the be found. Thus, the question needed ‘transmitter in a backpack’ activ- to find out more about radio art ism and dedicated radio installation could be ‘Where is radio art?’ It’s work of neuroTransmitter in the U.S., possible that these answers could to the D.I.Y. micro radio subversion contribute a lot to the discussion propagated by Tetsuo Kogawa in Japan, of indeed what radio art is.
waiting for a word, a sound or a made out of pure coincidence. It has who is talking to me. It can be a wave, to become a part it. nothing to do with this moment or recorded voice, a dead voice or the way I experience it and on most my next-door neighbor. 5 “I am a receiver, a small “on of all, nothing to do with me.” On this side I am part of the top of the T” receiver, and the Excerpt from diary constellation of listeners. complex web of sounds I can hear A constellation is an arrangement is not related to me. It’s the 6 “Who is out there?” of parts or elements; the outcome sound track of this particular When I turn the radio on I open a depends on the configuration of moment, an assemblage of sounds window, but to where? I don’t know influences at the time.
6, 88 20 .5 Muted Sound
open_reorder.indd 20 3/26/06 9:04:25 PM Where is radio art? LIGNA, Dial the Signals ‘The Radio Concert for 144 1. A traditional forum for radio art is public radio stations, often in Mobile Phones invented a late night slots on their cultural channels, for example the Austrian new musical instrument. Its ‘Kunstradio’ (weekly 11:05pm on Ö1) or the German ‘Studio Akustische core consisted of 144 phones, arranged in a grid of 12x12 Kunst’ (weekly 11:05pm on WDR3). The time devoted to experimental radio phones.’ (p. 120) has been shrinking continuously over the last years, however. LIGNA, Dial the Signals ‘The composer Jens Röhm 2. Radio art is also splattered around the programme timetable of some composed a single ring artistically inclined community radio stations, such as the long estab- tone for each of the mobile lished CiTR from Canada (101.9 MHz, Vancouver), or the UK’s Resonance FM phones. Thus, the grid of (104.4 MHz, London), which began broadcasting full-time in 2002. Com- mobile phones was tuned, every single ring tone was pared to their public counterparts these so called free cultural radio composed to fit with all the stations seem happy to increase airtime devoted to radio art. others.’ (p. 120)
LIGNA, Dial the Signals 3. Web-only broadcasters, podcasters, jukebox-like streams, and other ‘The next important compo- online formats have given radio art a further outlet. Examples include nent of that instrument was the Belgium-based SilenceRadio, podcasts from the European Radia group, the radio. The ringing mobile or the US art archivists of WPS1. This internet-based activity has been phones were broadcast to the listeners of FSK, the free growing constantly over the last years as live audio streaming has come radio station in Hamburg. of age. But listeners did not only receive the tones of the mobile phones--they were 4. Performances that involve radio receivers, such as Imaginary Land- the ones who played them. scapes No. 4 by John Cage, and the utilization of radio transmitters to With their own telephones-- produce sound, a technique used for example by Tetsuo Kogawa or Tonic the third part of the scattered Train, can be seen as places for radio art. instrument.’ (p. 120) LIGNA, Dial the Signals 5. Radio is used artistically as interventions in public space by such ‘The concert lasted from eight groups as Ligna, neuroTransmitter, and members of the radio.territories in the evening until eight in the morning. Every call network. changed the association of the sounds and thus was respon- Although this list is by no means complete, we can nevertheless make a sible for the composition as it few deductions about radio by examining it. was broadcast and streamed.’ (p. 120)
A. Radio art lives in niches. Examples are the late night niche on pub- LIGNA, Dial the Signals lic radio channels like WDR3, a frequency niche like Resonance’s small ‘Participating in the concert was possible for everyone FM transmitter on the crammed London radio dial, a podcasting niche like who possessed a radio and a the radia.fm outputs, or a live concert by Tonic Train in a niche venue. telephone. Additionally, the grid of the mobile phones was B. While the production of radio art in the publicly funded radio sta- displayed on a website that also streamed the sound, as tions is declining, it appears that all other radio art niches are an abstract field of light dots.’ thriving. (p. 120)
C. The five radio art niches can be divided into two sections. The first covers traditional terrestrial broadcasting (see points 1, 2 and 5 above), which can be discovered accidentally by almost anybody, be it through searching the dial on the radio or by stumbling upon a radio in- tervention in public space. The second (see points 3 and 4 above) covers webstreams, podcasts, live concerts, etc., which in most cases requires an active search by the listener.
In conclusion, we can summarize that radio art is found in niches, and classically, of course, by surfing the radio dial at night. For the curi- ous, there is also a wealth of radio art resources online. As for what it is exactly, this still lies in the ear of the listener. LIGNA. Dial the Signals! A large score board showed which phones were ringing during the concert. (p. 121)
What would be the outcome of a could they define a temporary shape dissolving. I looked at my hand constellation of listeners? for radio? and saw that the telephone was “The stars of a constellation are turning to mud in my palm, and I lonely independent fragments, “I said ‘hello’ into the phone, but saw a bit of skin rip off like that when seen together from it went silent and then the flash strips of chicken fajita. And the earth, suggest an image or hit. A plastic ‘Simpsons’ cup from then the pulse occurred. The symbol.” Burger King melted sideways on the kitchen window blew inward, all What would be the symbol of a counter; the black plastic frame of bright and sparkling, like tinsel constellation of listeners? And the TV softened its edges and began on a Christmas tree, and the
Where is Radio Art? 21 12, 117
open_reorder.indd 21 3/26/06 9:04:26 PM Mark Bain, Psychosonics and the Modulation of Public Space, “Imagine a bright spotlight only produced with sound, with directional beams which can penetrate the scull and stimulate the internal ear to cause physical trauma, imbalance, nausea and the need to escape its path. Image something that can generate voices in your head.” (p. 100)
Mark Bain, Psychoson- ics and the Modulation of Public Space, “Playing back recordings of an accident can produce another accident. For Burroughs this ‘playback is the essential ingredient’ in creating a slippage or feed- back between the real and the induced artificial.” (p. 101) 9. About Strategies of Sonic Control and Inter Reaction Idan Hayosh Most people do not control the sound motely as it is in the examples of radio in their environment (excluding their and internet streaming, or distributed own small contribution to their per- on recordable media (CDs, DVDs etc.), sonal ambient architecture), but are it is received and played back in vari- merely passive listeners. However, when ous devices and, as a consequence, in artists work with sound they are fun- numerous and vastly different ways. Es- damentally working with the concept of sentially, the broadcast sound piece is controlling the sound in spaces. The heard differently in every transducer sonic interventions into public spaces that processes it. In contrast, take of William Burroughs advocates con- the example of the sound piece shown trol while at the same time lacking the in an installation. Here, the acoustic
Mark Bain, A Simulation specifications of conditions required defaults of the space are used by the of a Reconstruction by to validate the concept of dominion producer to supply a specific experience Remote Means, Rendez-vous show, Museé Art Contempo- over location. The works of Mark Bain, to the recipient. It is thus a con- rain, Lyon, 2003. Photo on the other hand, are fundamentally trolled mode of presentation. Mark Bain (p. 105) about specifying the conditions of control, so much so that his works are William Burroughs’ Sonic Control inextricably place-specific. Inspired In Burroughs’s Electronic Revolution, in part by Burroughs and Bain I propose methods of sonic control (part of the a new concept which I call “distrib- famous cut/up techniques) are examined uted control” that fills in for the lack and portrayed as a subversive means of control necessary to validate the of applying revolutionary change to a poetic interventions of Burroughs while given and already controlled reality. eliminating the concept of forced site By recording, editing, and playing back specificity as exemplified with the work on location, one can transform exist- of Bain. On March 10, 2006, I sat down ing sonic architecture into their own with Mark Bain to discuss the logistics psychoacoustic arena, or in Burroughs’ of my project in conjunction with his language, one can “discommode or de- concepts of control and inter reaction. stroy” locations with control methods. With sound used for communication In a report on one of his experiments purposes (designed or edited), every in London the article, Burroughs de- sound piece is experienced within cer- scribes this target: “Here is a sample tain physical conditions. When listen- operation carried out against The Moka ing to designed sound, one’s experience Bar at 29 Frith Street London W1 be- is hinged upon the devices used for ginning on August 3, 1972... Reverse it’s transmission (loudspeakers for in- Thursday... Reason for operation was stance), as well as the spatial struc- outrageous and unprovoked discourtesy ture (acoustics) in which the sound is and poisoned cheesecake... Playback transmitted. was carried out a number of times with When a sound piece is broadcast re- more pictures. Their business fell off.
blender crashed into the wall and This information is powerful and means of thinking, we have maps, the Post-It notes on the fridge exchanging this it through com- plans, schemes and strategies and ignited and then I was dead.” munication is empowering. When we we talk, write and think about Excerpt from “The Wrong Sun”, cannot grasp the limits or cannot these maps, plans, schemes and Douglas Coupland understand our subject, we feel lost strategies. and scared because this means we are The radio voice is uncontrol- 7 To control we must understand loosing control lable, you never what it will the subject and be aware of its To avoid chaos, the scary deep sea produce and the connections are limits and borders. we can’t grasp with our complex unlimited. Our maps, plans and
6, 88 22 .5 Muted Sound
open_reorder.indd 22 3/26/06 9:04:27 PM They kept shorter and shorter hours. well. The situations he constructs are Mark Bain, Psychosonics October 30, 1972 The Moka Bar closed. designed to be experienced uncondition- and the Modulation of Public The location was taken over by The ally, yet the construction itself is Space, “This shifting of public space, the scrambling and Queens Snack Bar.” made accurately and under the complete reorganizing of information Burroughs, in his way, supports and responsibility of Bain. and location through acoustic incites control, even glorifying it. Bain normally works with specific ar- means, is something that the newer technology...shares He is not hesitant to practice it as an rangements in specific places, which with Burroughs’ ideas.”(p. experimental political campaign. Howev- makes the reproduction or distribution 103) er, the actual effect of his pieces is of the pieces difficult. Yet, textual interesting only as a text. As material description of the works and activi- Mark Bain, Psychosonics and the Modulation of Public (audio and visual) and physical de- ties provide a very clear and inspiring Space, “Burroughs, though, is scription, it lacks a certain accuracy. portrayal. the prankster provoking the He writes about sound and image control As he himself states: “Sometimes I dominant ideologies, sending messages to the collective events generated by his cut/up methods, find the best documentation is to show unconscious to be processed but does not specify physical acoustic slides, maybe have a brief example amorphously by the masses. conditions or a visual representation of the recording, but then also have The technologists on the other of the places in which control would a text about it, and also talk about hand are searching for the pure acoustic bullet of direct take effect. He talks about surrounding stories that happened around the control. Both could inform a place with speakers in “varying dis- situation. There’s always interesting each other and both can tances”, forming a “grid of sound”, or stories. With every project I did there neutralize each other, acting out a sonic war of sound in to project cut/up images with “projec- was always some sort of reaction from space and tactical strategiz- tion screens”, but the whole acoustic/ the public or situation that occurred ing.” (p. 103) visual layout is too vague. His experi- in relation to it.” ments do not convey the usage of his Control and the responsibility for it Mark Bain, Psychosonics and the Modulation of Public “tools” or “systems”. are essential when it comes to presen- Space, “We can choose to The Electronic Revolution is a sig- tation. Presentation in all forms is look away or close our eyes nificant work of poetry when it comes the totality of an idea or a method ex- to what is visible, but it’s more difficult to shut out the to sonic experiments in public space. ecuted in a physical way. A controlled audible. Our ears adapt to the Although Burroughs’ experimentation in presentation is an accurate and effec- noise, yet our brain still takes this area was extremely mind opening tive one. This is the stuff that makes it in.” (p. 108) and inspiring, the physical validity us react, what we eagerly long for and of the method, the same that provides expect. The content of the presenta- the motivation for an experiment to be tion can be in itself chaotic or chance “carried out”, was almost absent. The generating as long as the controller report (and article) is distributed in (writer, artist, activist, etc.) is a textual form, telling the story, but aware of the possibilities of their avoiding specifics of it’s presentation. product. A presentation unattached He neither considered nor depicted from the responsibility of its maker is explicit spatial conditions for his nothing. activities. In this sense, he won the battle but we really don’t know how. Distributed Control Distributed control is a way to Mark Bain’s Inter Reactive Soundworks demonstrate control in a disbursed Mark Bain, Acoustic Space Gun (ASG), Futura Center The artist Mark Bain believes that way. In collaboration with the artist for Contemporary Art, concepts like hostility and control Andre Avelas I have produced a sonic Prague 2004. Demo video still, videography, Ju- should be sauced up and dealt with. He article dealing with a specific aspect lika Rudelius (p. 106) argues that because suggestions of such of distributed control. The term sonic are omnipresent in media and popular article refers to a sound piece that culture, people become desensitized and relates to its output devices more than non-reactive to them. At a certain level a content-based statement. This work this in and of itself represents a de- employs a specificity of control that fault hostility, and this is where Bain is lacking in the works of Burroughs. is interested in constructing a means of Like the works of Bains it dictates the experiencing. In his spatial works, in- conditions of experience, while unlike tensity and physicality are essential. Bains is totally place inspecific. By Bain confronts the visitor with sonic digitally limiting a track’s quality to environments/systems that react, as 4 bit (telephone quality) and thus re- well as incite the viewer. His term for ducing the frequency range, a piece can
this is “inter reactive,” meaning that be heard in the same quality by every Mark Bain, Contact, Smart the work intervenes with the involved device that transmits it. The result project Space, Amstedam 2003. Photo Mark Bain viewer’s position, but leaves a loop- is a lo-fi sound piece that conveys the (p. 105) hole allowing that viewer to investi- same sonic information regardless of gate the work on his or her own terms as playback mechanism.
strategies do not work in ‘radio duced, it will immediately get out possible connections with other space’ with its different context of our hands, dive back into its images. When it comes to sound it and rules. own world and mix with the already is even more difficult to predict existing sounds. anything. Every association of 8 It is possible to record frag- This also happens in the world of sounds or situation created by ments of the radio body, in an images. We cannot control the en- this association is always a attempt to analyse and control vironment in which the image will surprise. it, but the second it is repro- be seen, who is seeing it and the
Where is Radio Art? 23 12, 117
open_reorder.indd 23 3/26/06 9:04:28 PM Huib Haye van der Werk, Radiodays An Iquiry into an Aural Space ‘One important aspect in setting up a radio programme as an art project is the acception and exploita- tion of the specific character of radio as a medium.’ (p.124)
‘In creating an independent space a discrepancy emerged between the ‘physical’ and the ‘non-physical’ space of radio. It is this discrep- ancy that functioned as the framework for the curato- rial experiment--namely the divergence between inside and outside and the ability of sound to travel back and forth between these limits.’ - IBID. p. 125 10. Radio Days: A Visitation in the Sonosphere Julian H. Scaff
“The thing with sound in general is Grasso. On the other hand, the that people tend to deconstruct the conceptual space was the opposite. scientific aspects and forget about The exhibition was not just in the poetics.” - James Beckett the room, but on the airwaves, on For twenty-five days in April, 2005, radios in Amsterdam, and streaming participants in De Appel Founda- onto people’s computers all over tion’s Curatorial Training Program the world. Beckett observes that presented an eclectic exhibition “They had this space which they had of sound works broadcast live in built which I thought was amazing. Amsterdam and streamed on the web. It’s a bit odd if you want to actu- I was invited by James Beckett to ally see someone, which is nice be- contribute a thirty-minute show cause you have to kind of duck down to the exhibition, and this past and try to find an angle in which to February, 2006, I sat down with him peer through the thing with these to discuss our impressions of Radio fluctuating lights. So it’s really Days and it’s impact on radio sound like a hallucination.” art. This hallucinatory, cinematic space One of the boldest things about Ra- became the stage for a highly dio Days is the fact that De Appel eclectic program of sound works and essentially shut down most of it’s performances spanning twenty-five gallery space for the duration of days. The program was, by defini- the exhibition. For a gallery with tion, un-curated in the sense that a prodigious amount of physical the curators rejected notions of space in which to exhibit physi- categorizing the works. Beckett cal works, to close the doors to points out that the curators “... most of that space and to produce had a lot of content. So they had an exhibition that exists mostly a logistical problem of being demo- the in conceptual space of broad- cratic and writing a program. As cast airwaves is quite brave. On a result I think you have a lack the one hand, the physical space of of categorization for practical Radio Days was an imploded space purposes because then it becomes in De Appel, a multi-floor exhi- inclusive.” The inclusiveness and bition hall reduced to a single democratic nature of the program room, and a room-within-a-room at was both good and bad. It was un- that, a sort of cinematic hyper- focused but also indicative of the cube designed by Laurent and Pascal wide range of activities happen-
9 We are prepared to allow any- on a single head”. What do you bring to this party thing when it comes to sound and Silence is an impossible state. of listeners enjoying the same consequently, when it comes to (Maybe it’s not even desirable, but radio space? radio. Used to expect any kind of I can’t be sure about this) You bring your solitude. By al- assemblages, any kind of acciden- lowing the space introduced by tal encounters or coincidences in 10 Radio is a lonely experience, but radio, you are sharing your own our everyday sound experience, we the medium of radio creates shared monologue. are constantly receiving sound networks and constellations of data trough our two bands “stuck listeners. 11 ” I’m listening: A body of
6, 88 24 .5 Muted Sound
open_reorder.indd 24 3/26/06 9:04:28 PM “The non-visual recreation of a location and a specific con- text illustrates the superiority of sound over visualization. Sound requires a more active attitude from an audience, one that is the opposite of the more passive one of a viewer.” - IBID. p. 126
“Radio and it’s future, everything and nothing, everywhere and nowhere at once.” - IBID. p. 128
Radiodays Studio by Laurent Grasso (in collaboration with Pascal Grasso). Photo is made Claire Staebler.
ing in sound and radio art, from overlooked. The shows by the group spoken word to soundscapes to art LIGNA are the most interesting in- hip-hop. Where Radio Days suc- cluded in Open 9, but other shows ceeded brilliantly was with works they discuss or include on the that exploited and explored the companion CD are merely self-ana- specificity of the medium, the abil- lytical interviews and ignore some ity of sound to define and create of the most interesting aspects of space, and the interplay between Radio Days. broadcaster and audience. Where it Beckett muses that “If you had to failed is was when programs talked encounter a section of a program, too much about the medium, either given that you wouldn’t listen to in a historical sense or a decon- it from the beginning, then you’d structive sense. Beckett agrees have this kind of slit in normality that “If you have the medium, then because you’d have something absurd host more pieces designed for the for what is otherwise a commercial medium. That’s the richness, medium. And that’s where it breaks that’s the life, that’s where it the space and makes it something comes from. If you talk about it odd. That’s why I really liked the the whole time then it becomes a romantic programs that were really bit schizophrenic. It’s like this delving into oddness.” Below I radio on radio.” The self-analyti- review four shows from Radio Days cal shows that discussed the medium that I believe capture in some way were by far the most banal, whereas the vitality of the medium, create the most performative works tended a “slit in normality,” and trans- to have the most vitality and be port the listener in sonic space. the most interesting because they While this is a tiny selection from created their own space, their own the exhibition, it is intended to reality, and demonstrated the power reflect a different aspect of Radio of radio to transform and trans- Days than that reflected in Open port the listener. In the article 9. Audio files of these shows are about Radio Days in the journal archived on the Radio Days website: Open 9, these aspects are largely http://www.radiodays.org/
sounds. Speaks to me trough my receivers don’t belong to the same two receivers and through the universe. We don’t speak the same 13 “Private property is the best just found “world receiver”. It’s language.” means of control.” always here, even when I think Excerpt from diary Almost everything is controlled I’m not listening. and privatised and belongs to I can describe it with images, 12 “Some frequencies are still someone. but it’s not enough, because I available” Do we own our objects, our ideas can never grasp the whole of it. Excerpt from “The Future of Radio or even our friends? It’s too wide, to diverse and my Art”, LIGNA Some things can’t be owned, and
Radio Days: A Visitation in the Sonosphere 25 12, 117
open_reorder.indd 25 3/26/06 9:04:29 PM Saturday 2nd - 16:00 Your Host (Live) Willem de Ridder 60 minutes Willem de Ridder begins “Ah, there you are. Yes. Welcome. Sit down.” And so begins a series of philosophical musings about sound, mind, im- age, dreams, and reality. “All the images are made inside” he says. This broadcast, more than any other, melds spoken word with philosophy and visual sound. The low synth drone and de Ridder’s voice, like Tom Waits with a French accent, combines with ambient soundscapes to form images that meld with abstract ideas. But the scenes are not so obvious as to make the interpretation by the listener ubiquitous. Some might have a more visual interpretation in their mind, some a more intellectu- al understanding. But either way the journey that de Ridder takes us on is mesmerizing, penetrating, and truly endemic to the medium of radio.
Thursday 14th - 00:15 Somniloquy, (2004) Laurent Montaron 10 minutes The sound of heavy breathing, sometimes louder, then fading. Inhal- ing and exhaling ebbs and flows like the tide. Ambient sounds seem to seep in through a window. A passing truck. Low-level grey noise. The Doppler effect of a passing ambulance siren. A woman speaks in French, her face close to the microphone, amidst the rustling of a blanket. The sound of swallowing. She laughs quietly. Fade to silence as the room melts away, and we enter a dream world. A song plays backwards. The song fades out, and we return to the room where the woman sleeps. The sound of heavy breathing. Ambient sounds of traffic. Low-level grey noise. A very faint electronic buzz. The sound of fingernails scratch- ing skin. The woman speaks again. She turns restlessly but doesn’t awake. Grey noise. A quiet exhale.
Saturday 23rd - 19:15 Perkin To BASF / Czech Workers (2005) James Beckett 30 minutes This sound piece, performed on audio cassettes, is a sonic history of the first synthesized color invented by Sir William Perkin. Instead of simply talking about Perkin or telling a story through narrative, a fragmented story is told through the soundscapes where he lived and worked. Birds chirping. White noise. Grey noise. Automobile traffic. And then suddenly the sound stops and James Beckett talks about what Perkin did. Beckett not only tells a story of Perkin, but gives the story a sonic spirit of place. It is a documentary expressed through both spoken word the sound of his landscapes.
Sunday 24th - 18:20 Sonic notes from Istanbul (Live) Basak Senova 45 minutes The show begins with a silly song named “Istanbul (Not Constantinople).” Basak Senova explains the first sound art exhibition in Turkey, and the challenges of reflecting geography through sound. The tracks from the project mix percussive and rhythmic Turkish music with ambient site-spe- cific sound, studio-generated electronic noise and samples from Turkish radio or television broadcasts. While some of the tracks are connec- tions or reflections of landscape and place, others are more ethereal conceptions of cultural and conceptual space.
Quotations by James Beckett from personal interview, 15 February, 2006.
the ‘radio body’ belongs to this 15 Art works belong to a universe egorization through language or group of things. of images and sounds that, like the other required means. This is not ‘radio body’, are uncontrollable necessarily prejudicial, because 14 The ‘radio body’ belongs to because of their variable nature. in a variable universe anything the group of things incompatible Language is used to fixate and con- can and will be used as raw mate- with language so; a definition of trol this variable quality, like I rial for further experiments and its limits is always an impossi- am trying to do now with this text. surprises. ble, or at least difficult, task. Radio Art will also be object of dissection, analysis and cat- 16 “Incorporating the promise of
6, 88 26 .5 Muted Sound
open_reorder.indd 26 3/26/06 9:04:29 PM universal communication bound crossing boundaries but with uncer- Sónia Ribeiro 2006 together with the more immediate tain destination; capable of the prospect of irreversible decay, most intimate communion and the most the radio body (still in pieces, sudden destruction.” References: still in the making) is a com- Excerpt from Out of the Dark: Notes The Future of Radio Art, LIGNA, posite of opposites: speaking to on the Nobodies of Radio Art, Open no9 everyone abstractly but no one Gregory Whitehead The Multiplication of The Street, in particular; ubiquitous, but Dirk Van Weelden, Open no9 fading without a trace; forever
Radio Days: A Visitation in the Sonosphere 27 12, 117
open_reorder.indd 27 3/26/06 9:04:29 PM From: marianne viero Subject: room tones are louder in N.Y. Date: Tuesday, March 21, 2006 01:29 AM To: max neuhaus 1 Attachment, 148 KB
On Mar 21, 2006 01:29 AM, Marianne Veiro wrote:
Dear Max,
Being home again feels strange. Time passes in a much slower tempo here leaving a void between me and everything that happened in New York. I’ve been spending the last days drinking tea (I heard it’s better to stay Installation of the away from coffee after a transatlantic journey) and looking through the Sound Work by Max Neu- haus on Times Square in photos I have taken. I would’ve liked to send you a photograph from Times New York. © Max Neuhaus. Square, but it turns out that I haven’t got nearly as many as I thought, (p. 88) and the ones I do have only show the grates. Instead I have attached a ‘Neuhaus ‘builds’ a sound photo that I found on the web. I think the group is in fact posing on top that is related to the sounds in of your piece. I really like this image. It’s like it carries a promise the environment, that is taken that something noisy is going to happen. And I also think it illustrates from the site. In a way, it is how I felt being there in quite an accurate manner. misleading that he compares the sound in Times Square with the reverberation of I was very happy to receive your mail the other day. And especially huge bells. The sound of the pleased to learn that Times Square was different in the 70’s. I can’t work is close to the sounds of Times Square and differs exactly point out why. (I almost feel relieved). It just seems to make at the same time from all the more sense. You describe the place as attracting a much more diverse sounds that occur there, so range of people back then and I think that goes well with your intentions that, though it is not unlikely of creating a work that can be experienced by anyone, anytime. I wonder in this place, it is nevertheless strange. It is always possible how the reality of today’s Times Square is treating these ideas. No one to distinguish between the happens to just be at Times Square anymore. And everyone there has some- sound of the work of Max thing in common: they go there on purpose (I wouldn’t like to say that Neuhaus and the mass of all the other sounds – and it ap- these people are all the same, but I do think they go there with pretty pears as if all the other sounds much the same image of what to expect.) You say that your work creates an merge into one single mass entity, unlike music that creates an event, but now Times Square itself compared with the sound has turned into an event and I wonder how that inspires perceptions of of the work – subtle as the contrast may be (p. 90) the piece.
But Max, actually I’m writing because I think there is one point I didn’t manage to make clear until now. (Which might be the reason why you don’t think the Times Square piece is for me...) In my last mail I said I didn’t feel I got a closer relationship with the work while there, than the one I got from reading about it. I do believe this is true, but I also think I owe it to you to tell you that I actually gained a lot from my readings.
I don’t know if it’s right to say that I have experienced your work with a certain distortion, but maybe it’s not far off. When reading about the work I learned about its form, its history, the intentions behind it, and how people have responded to it. All together this informa- tion turned my own experience on Times Square into nothing more then a confirmation of the different aspects I knew would be there (or at most a critical search to find out if everything had been described according- ly). You have a point when you say that I might have read too much before going.
Since the work is about perception, and since our perception is to such an extent build on our experiences, I agree that it’s crucial not to be prepared for the experience if we want to upset our usual patterns of understanding and orientation and the notions we have of how things work and how things are.
Nevertheless, I do think I have experienced the piece. Only my experi-
Faking It: Experimental Radio and Nobodies of Radio Art, Gregory Radio intervenes in everyday its Audience, Martin Spinelli, Whitehead, UbuWeb Papers situations by opening an indis- Resonance vol. 10 tinct space, but the subtleness The power of Radio Sound, Jo Tac- 2 “Intervening means to occur of such an intervention makes it chi, Resonance vol. 10 between other events or between unnoticed. These kinds of spaces Impossible Voices, Unmakeable certain points of time, to step in, do not call out our attention, so Beings, Gregory Whitehead, UbuWeb interfere, interpose, to be placed it is not urgent to notice them Papers or located between other things or becoming a choice to do so. Out of the Dark: Notes on the extend between spaces and events.” The same situation happens, for
6, 88 28 .5 Muted Sound
open_reorder.indd 28 3/26/06 9:04:29 PM ence of it didn’t happen at Times Square. It happened through reading ‘More precisely, the zone about it. To me the work exists as an idea. I don’t know if you like of sound is a block soaring from the depths, whose that, because it makes the effort you put into the character of the extent and shape can only sounds seem like it was in vain. But I’m happy. I am gladly giving up any be identified by walking authentic experience I might have had of the work if I had discovered around, determining as one moves through the space, if it coincidentally on Times Square in return for just knowing about it. one is inside or outside the In fact I see some advantages in experiencing the work like this. Most realm of the work. In the case importantly, the work has opened (my eyes to) a perceptual channel that of Times Square the sound I was hardly aware of before. The place that the work creates in my mind itself is not uniform, but possesses different qualities is much bigger then the place it is said to create at Time Square. It’s a at various parts of the zone of place that exist in my own conciseness of my surroundings, how they are sound. These differences are defined, and how they sound. due to particular frequency combinations, which might best be described as different Yours sincerely, sound colours. The inner Marianne modelling of the zone, its topography, can once again only be experienced by a listener in movement. The topography itself is static. It depends on the differentia- tion of a sound that does not undergo any development in time, nor performs any scan- sion, extension, extension, abbreviation or acceleration of time, whether in the form of a sequence of different sounds or organized intervals of sound and non-sound. In contrast to all conventional experience of sounds, the sound as applied by Max Neuhaus is continuous and unchanged through time. (p. 90)
‘Max Neuhaus constructs the sound in such a way that the question of ‘when?’ or ‘how long?’ is replaced by the question ‘where?’ of the sound in its place.’ (p. 91)
‘Because the sound of Sound Work is similar to the other noises in terms of volume and tonal colour, and is not directly distinguishable from ambient noises, it requires particular attentiveness and an extrodinary activation of the sense of hearing in order to percieve it: there is a shift from primarily visual percep- tion to aural perception – this is particularly notable in a place like Times Square, which on the other hand is more likely than many other places to comply with and confirm the supremacy of the visual.’ (p. 91)
example, with footnotes: they can bicycles passing by and someone add something to your reading, 3 “Still half asleep I look at the walking on the snow. (I do I but you can read the whole text window and realize it’s still snow- recognize this sound?) without noticing or reading them. ing. I get up and walk around the The radio space is open, but it The house is quiet. I close my eyes house. is our choice to step into it. and start my first city recognition: R. left an open map of Berlin Radio intervenes in our everyday the train, someone walking without on the table, so I try to place situations but we also have to shoes on a wooden floor; cars slowing myself in it. intervene in radio’s space. down; people talking on the street; I remember what he told me last
Dear Max 29 12, 117
open_reorder.indd 29 3/26/06 9:04:30 PM CREDITS
Cover
.5 Footnotes to Open Cahier on art and the public domain / Volume 4 (2005) no. 9
Editors John Heymans (editor in chief), Susannah Mira (final edit- ing), Julian H. Scaff, Gabriëlle Schleijpen
Editorial Board Idan Hayosh, Dagmar Kriegesmann, Sonia Ribeiro, Iris Tenkink, Marianne Viero
Copy Editor
Graphic design Darcy Jeffs, Werkp- laats Typografie, Arnhem
Printing and lithography MacDonald SSN, Nijmegen
Project Coordinator John Heymans
Publisher DAI Private, DAI Public
Distribution Nai Publishers and DAI
Postcard if you are interested in obtaining the CD made in compila- tion with this publication see the CD request postcard included.
6, 88 30 .5 Muted Sound
open_reorder.indd 30 3/26/06 9:04:30 PM Web References supplied by Sarah Washington and Knut Aufermann
www.resonancefm.com www.radia.fm www.mobile-radio.net www.?????.??? Web references:
Kunstradio: http://kunstradio.at/ Studio Akustische Kunst: http://www.wdr.de/radio/wdr3/sendung. phtml?sendung=WDR+3+open%3A+Studio+Akustische+Kunst
CiTR: http://www.citr.ca/ Resonance104.4fm: http://resonancefm.com SilenceRadio.org: http://www.silenceradio.org/ Radia network: http://radia.fm WPS1: http://wps1.org/ John Cage: Imaginary Landscape No.4: http://www.medienkunstnetz. de/works/imaginary-landscape-4/
Tetsuo Kogawa: http://anarchy.translocal.jp/ Tonic Train: http://www.vibrofiles.com/artists/artists_tonic_ train.php Ligna: http://www.ok-centrum.at/english/ausstel- lungen/open_house/ligna.html
neuroTransmitter: http://neurotransmitter.fm/ radio.territories: http://radia.fm/territories/
Web References 31 12, 117
open_reorder.indd 31 3/26/06 9:04:30 PM AUDIO INSTRUCTIONS: 1. INSERT MAIL ORDER CD OR EXTRACTED DIGITAL AUDIO FILE INTO ANY AUDIO PLAYBACK DEVICE 2. REPEAT SEVERAL TIMES WITH ALTERNATE AUDIO PLAYBACK DEVICES 3. SHARE AND DISTRIBUTE AT WILL
Order the FREE Open 9.5 Companion Audio CD The Open 9.5 Companion Audio CD contains two tracks. First is a 1-hour live radio broadcast of the BIMRAB (Big Mouth Radio Beam) Exhibition from the W139 gallery in Amsterdam. The exhibition of sound and body performances was broadcast live on ResonanceFM in London, and hosted by Bob Recon and Rza Rza Rabot. Second is a sound work titled “Control” by Idan Hayosh. If you would like to or- der this audio CD please fill out this postcard and send it to the Dutch Art Institute.
__ YES, please send me the Open 9.5 Companion Audio CD, free of charge.
__ NO, please no not send me the Open 9.5 Companion Audio CD, free of charge.
First Name ......
Last Name ...... Organization ......
Address ......
Postal or Zip Code: ......
State or Provence ......
Country ......
eMail ......
open_reorder.indd 32 3/26/06 9:04:30 PM Postage needed.
Dutch Art Institute Postbus 1440 7500 BK Enschede The Netherlands
open_reorder.indd 33 3/26/06 9:04:31 PM