introduction
The Politics of Sound Art
I am interested in a political art, that is to say an art Many of our contributors addressed aspects of field of ambiguity, contradiction, uncompleted gestures and recording in this issue of LMJ. With its quasi-documen- uncertain endings, an art (and a politics) in which tary mandate, the emergent field of phonography abounds optimism is kept in check and nihilism at bay. with political content and implications, from recordings —William Kentridge [1]. of street protests (Christopher DeLaurenti and Christo- If in 1968 someone had asked the 14-year-old me to pher Wood), to ecological advocacy (Tom Kohut, Alison define “sound art” I probably would have pointed to the Pezanoski-Browne), to compositions based on the voices megaphones that sprouted that spring across the Colum- of Cuban street vendors (Neil Leonard), to analyses of the bia University campus (see this issue’s cover). They were genre itself in terms of political agency (Gerald Fiebig, ubiquitous and frequently mishandled or malfunction- Tullis Rennie). ing: words were interlaced with feedback and obscured Political agency begins with access, and several authors by distortion. Amplifying one’s voice to address a handful focus on the role of new technologies in increasing acces- of friendly comrades under a tree seemed more of a con- sibility to music and sound. Helen R. Mitchell reports on ceptual statement than an acoustic necessity. the use of biometric computer games in the diagnosis In that turbulent year the inflection of art by politics and treatment of dementia, while Koichi Samuels reviews seemed natural, and music was one of the most conspicu- designs for “open” musical interfaces that can be easily ous vehicles of expression. The first discs to grace my kid- adapted to compensate for various disabilities. Adam die record player were by the subtly subversive Burl Ives Tinkle and Daniel Walzer both discuss novel pedagogies (blacklisted 1950), while Pete Seeger (blacklisted 1957) had for music education. provided the musical backdrop in the living room. The political and social characteristics of technology But 1968 was also the year I bought Jimi Hendrix’s itself are the subjects of several papers. Andrew Brooks Are You Experienced, and electricity became the central brings glitch into the field of queer studies. Ryan Jordan component of my musical world. To an adolescent the considers do-it-yourself (DIY) electronics as a form of artifacts of feedback and distortion seemed as much an “literal critical practice.” Shelly Knotts looks at network anti-authoritarian statement when applied to the guitar music as a means of developing nonhierarchical models as they were when they rang out at a sit-in. These were of communication and power distribution. Karen Col- the sounds of subversion, rather than of protest. While lins and Ruth Dockwray analyze the role of sound design Seeger overlaid timeless, politically neutral chords and as a rhetorical device in public service announcements. melodies with pointed lyric statements, Hendrix reshaped Nathan Thompson considers audio feedback as a tool for the underlying musical material; his message lay inside creating environmentally responsive installations. the sound itself. Providing an outline of the political topics utilized in Between the protest song and the protesting megaphone his 40 years of work, Richard Lerman discusses his use lies the wide swath of political music and sound art, the of piezo contact mikes to make recordings at sites of timely subject matter of this volume of Leonardo Music human rights abuses, while Mo H. Zareei describes his Journal. Half a century after the Sixties we are again living mechatronic sound sculptures in terms of Brutalist design in a world of intense political divisiveness, and activists theory. William A. Thompson IV and Jeffrey Albert dis- on both the left and the right have taken up sound as a cuss the role of music production and listening during medium, a weapon, and a subject of study. The time has Thompson’s deployment in Iraq following 9/11. come to review this landscape. Jing Wang contributes an overview of the current state
©2015 ISAST LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 25, pp. 1–2, 2015 1 of sound art in China, while Sandra Kazlauskaitė provides for her extraordinary Cantos Cautivos project, an online insight into similar practices in post-Soviet Lithuania. Tara archive of songs in the context of detention and torture in Rodgers takes a more global view of the political dimen- Chile under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973– sions of electronic music and the possible pathways of 1990). Finally, Larry Polansky—founding editor of Leo sonic activism. nardo Music Journal—contributes a rather poignant essay Historical perspective is provided in both Adi Louria- on LMJ’s first 25 years. Hayon’s critique of the “sounding body” in the work of Art historian Susan Tallman has observed that the idea Bruce Nauman, and Martyn Hudson’s reevaluation of of “political art” suffers from an innate contradiction: the relation of sound to architecture in Kurt Schwitters’s the complexity and ambiguity of good art precludes the Merzbau. For its “political” issue in 1969 Source magazine pedantic clarity usually needed to incite political action asked 20 composers: “Have you, or has anyone ever used [2]. South African artist William Kentridge has articu- your music for political or social ends?” For this volume of lated a possible solution to that conundrum: the idea that LMJ Alyce Santoro put the same question to 20 composers ambiguity itself can constitute a defiant political statement, working today, including several who had been included which brings us back to where we started: The feedback in the earlier Source. disrupting the megaphone. Drawing on his peripatetic musical background, Lukas Ligeti curated the downloadable album Sonic Commen nicolas collins tary: Meaning through Hearing for this volume. In addition Editor-in-Chief Katia Chornik has contributed a short essay and web link Email:
Endnote References and Notes Mark Trayle passed away in February 2015, at the age of 60. Mark was a 1 William Kentridge, in William Kentridge: Drawings for Projection, founding member of The Hub, a beloved faculty member at CalArts, and Four Animated Films (Johannesburg: Goodman Gallery, 1992) n.p. a contributor to and peer reviewer for Leonardo Music Journal. He will be missed by many, and this volume of LMJ is dedicated to his memory. 2 Conversation with author, June 2015.
2 LMJ25 Introduction lmj at 25
A Pentalustral Interlude
In 1991, when we instantiated the Leonardo Music Jour- species depauperate on the earth, working our way inexo- nal, I wrote a somewhat paradoxical editorial titled “17 rably toward ourselves. Even in what used to feel like an Gloomy Sentences (and Commentary) at the turn of the unassailed United States (admittedly, only from certain millennium (in the form of an editorial)” [1]. One sen- perspectives), cataclysm insinuates itself almost daily. tence was hopeful: Ecologically we see, on a daily basis, the incipience of doom: devastating droughts in my home in California; 16. LMJ’s commitment to globalism, to experiment, to sty- listic nonboundaries, to allowing musicians to articulate ever-increasing coastal hurricanes; ecological collapses of their own work, is a humble beginning. both flora and fauna; disasters of every stripe. The world is besieged by continual and pervasive war, genocides, mi- A quarter of a century later, I remain hopeful, made so sogynistic violence and oppression. Political and socio- by the extraordinary world of music, sound and ideas that economic decision-making is dominated by corporations the LMJ community and the artistic community at large and religious fundamentalists, and the increasing malefi- continues to create. As a teacher, composer, performer cence of an out-of-control accelerating-feedback capital- and editor, I encounter daily something fascinating, new, ism. Black humor determines where we choose to live: intriguing and often wonderful that inspires me, most of pick your favorite apocalypse. Everywhere on the planet all, to “get back to work.” LMJ, under the visionary and the terrifying disparity in well-being, privilege, wealth, energetic stewardship of Nic Collins, for the past five lus- health, freedom and safety is a runaway train headed over tra has remained new, essential to the artistic world, and a cliff—in fact, maybe already over that cliff. an important resource. Given all this, how can or does it make sense to: Learn I’m still cautious, and sometimes a bit gloomy (maybe or teach in an MFA program in new media, composi- by nature)—but about different things. The composer tion, sound or digital arts? Be a sound installation or Dirk Rodney said that in art, “All is novel, nothing is new.” soundscape artist, or sonic geographer? Write new com- In my 1991 editorial I decried musical conservatism, non- positional or performance software; fabricate new “DIY” inclusivity and arbitrarily inhibitive distinctions [2]. I’m interactive technology or laser-cut your own dulcimer? less worried about those at the moment and more worried What license must we self-issue in order to use an Ar- about how artists can continue to work in a turbulent and duino card and Max patch in a college black box theater almost dystopian world in which art seems to be at best or a loft in Oakland, Berlin or Brooklyn, in order to call a luxury, at worst a dangerously misguided indulgence. attention to fracking in the Urals, systematic raping of Since I helped launch LMJ, and since I left its helm in women in India or Brazil, systematic for-profit imprison- 1997, the world (inside and out of art) has changed dra- ment of Black men in the United States? matically. The availability, ease of use and power of music- And, as Gordon Mumma often pointed out long ago, making technology have increased, literally exponentially. electronic art forms rely heavily on advanced technology, At the same time, there are a great many more younger and by extension giant corporate infrastructures. Even artists, and commensurately more institutions granting software development, once a kind of off-the-grid musical degrees in composition, sound art and digital arts and art form, is now often a hunt-and-peck through Google media. It has become harder for younger artists to find [3]. The term “political art” seems more and more the ap- their own new voices and to feel that they are making an propriate subject for a smarmy, satirical YouTube video. important contribution, given the enormous quantity of The Internet, with its overwhelmingly flat artistic and kindred work being done. knowledge topography, presents new opportunities and But at the same time we continue to make earth’s higher new dangers. Lou Harrison used to say that composers
©2015 ISAST LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 25, pp. 3–4, 2015 3 born after Hiroshima had no sense of history, because is that the journal, and artists, are doing what we should they no longer had a surety of the future. Entering into a be doing: making art and talking about it. We do that in historical musical conversation makes little sense if there our age-old response to justice and injustice, equality and won’t be any more history. The Web, a nascent technology inequality, sanity and insanity. We should never stop ask- when we began LMJ, not to mention its decades-older ing hard questions—about art, the world, society, justice, progenitor Leonardo, has irrevocably transformed the way peace and what it means to be a decent human being. We artists learn, produce, collaborate and think. The Internet need to, each of us alone, engage in the thorniest of these is like a planar space-filling curve of fractal dimension- arguments with ourselves alone. We should never let our- ality. Everything seems immediate, proximal, connected selves off the hook about what, why and how we do what and available. The Web’s virtue is how easy it has become we do. But we should continue to do. For the doing and to get information and instructions and to learn some- the asking, we need LMJ and things like it. thing new (or old). Consequently, the definition of an art- We can’t, in fact, do much else, so we owe it to ourselves ist (or scientist)—to be “curious”—takes on new meaning. to not waste the lottery-pick life we accidentally won. This Artists have always tried, sometimes successfully, to be is good news, I suppose, like getting a mild flu in third unsafe in a safe world. Yet increasingly art has become grade and having to stay home from school—there’s not safe in an unsafe world. Safe because it poses no threat to a heck of a lot you can do about your good fortune, and the status quo, the corporate, academic and technologi- you’re not really hurting anyone else. Most of us can’t cal infrastructure that easily exploits and pigeonholes it. help being artists. The world’s problems are what they So: What to do? Not to sound Panglossian, but I believe are—devastatingly serious—and will worsen or improve that the answer is “pretty much what we’ve always done.” without much interference, I’m afraid, from us. I’m sure The artist’s assignment is preoccupation with fancy, mean- when the zombie apocalypse comes, I’ll even find a few ingfully useless ideas. We should devote our full energies free moments to write a round about it. to the creation of new apertures into the mind and senses. We are obliged to do these things with all the honesty and larry polansky humility we can muster. Leonardo Music Journal So my non-gloomy thought on LMJ’s 25th anniversary Founding Editor, 1991–1997
References and Notes 1 Larry Polansky, “17 Gloomy Sentences (and Commentary) at the increasing number of small breweries. I am sad to say that there has turn of the millennium (in the form of an editorial),” Leonardo Music been far too little progress in the former and more than enough in Journal 1 (1991) pp. 17–18. the latter. 2 From a nonmusical standpoint, I also said that humanity desper- 3 Full disclosure: In writing this essay I entered “lustrums” in Google ately needed to leave the planet and saw a glimmer of hope in the to check its plural.
4 Polansky, A Pentalustral Interlude ABSTRACT similarities popular inthe imagination: many share toxins these that notes Bijsterveld Karin laws, and odors are often linked. In her sounds history of noxious noise abatementthat given instructive, is smog with noise of comparison The unavoidable. largely least, at dwellers “there,”somethingdeleterious toone’s but, health for urban are hard to relate in termsthat of direct causation. ways “Noise” in is just albeit living, urban with correlated and fects ef- noxious of degrees in measurable toxin, environmental an is noise smog, with As [1]. everywhere” people of health the to hazard a considered be must Noise inconvenience. Sound asserted that “calling noise a nuisance is like calling smog an In 1978, former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. William H. Stewart Toxi sonic ecologicalsustainability. canindicateanewmodeof López suggestthatthisnaturalperversity is, in fact, unnatural. The field recordings of Chris Watson and Francisco nature, butecologicalthoughtofthepastdecadesuggeststhatnature Composer R.MurraySchafercontraststhistoxinwithasustaining societies andisdifficulteithertocontainorevendefineprecisely. tend topostulatenoiseasatoxinthatisproducedbyourindustrial pollution areaconcreteembodiment.Thediscoursesofnoise Sound isapoliticalquestionofwhichtheantagonismsnoise Soundscape in theContemporary of Sound:T N ©2015 ISAST ©2015 a noise is a social difference: sound and melodious between difference the reek, ungodly files associatedwiththisissueofLMJ. foraudio,videoandothersupplementary See
u h o K m o T
They are smelly and noisy, while t oxicity, N ature andCulture determining its source and the concomitant difficulty in istic that unites odor and noise: Specifically,the in difficulty we are clean and quiet. However, there is a further character- be, itbe, is acontamination or plague. public awareness campaigns. In short, whatever noise might to recalcitrant as and smoke tobacco as dangerous as tion, pollu- of form a is noise Thus, pathologies. social and ioral is “noise,” and whatever it is, it leads to physiological, behav- from a medical wepaper; are only given the sense that there expect might we that details effects, these produce sound?) infra/ultra- sounds? repetitive sounds? (high-pitched noise cal impairment [5]. We are not given a sense of what kinds of emotional disturbances, negative behaviorsocial and physi- disturbances, cardiovascular sleep disturbances, [4], psychological reaction” and stress and relationships interpersonal capacity,disturbed working decreased misunderstandings, irritation, self-confidence, uncertainty,offatigue, lack tion, concentra- with “problems impairment, hearing exposure: Plague” ern noteeffects of pathologicalprolonged the noise AMod- Pollution: “Noise of authors the Thus, effects. cal noise), focusing on noise understood in its phenomenologi- haveofforgonenoise essence ontological questionsthe (on conceptualize attemptsto this, of Because concept. own its of excess in even delimitation, of excess in always is noise that fact the against up running fruitless, prove to tended have noise of definition objective quantifiable, a determine to Attempts particularities. listeners’ on dependent enon phenom- subjective a noise renders sound,”wanted which the Western Medieval period, noise has been defined as “un- scientific and engineering strategiesthat attempt to limit it. manage [3]. them Noise as pollution exceeds legal, political, to attempts overwhelming circumstances a of story” is “tragic Bijsterveld, to according regulation, noise of history the failure; of one protection—is hearing concerning tions levels or workplace safety regula- decibel airport and traffic exposure to noise—including of laudable effects ordinances harmful restricting potentially the regulate and quantify to attemptsBijsterveld’sawayIndeed, the ofgo . analysisit ing To what degree is this a question of noise as such? Since such? as noise of question a this is Todegree what LEONARDO MUSICJOURNAL, V ol. 25,pp. 5–8,2015 mak-
5 Tht e U opia of Natural Sound while machine-made substitutes are providing the operative This is certainly the position held by Canadian composer signals directing modern life” [14]. The creation of this syn- R. Murray Schafer of the World Soundscape Project. Scha- thetic soundscape denatures nature. fer’s rhetoric is bellicose: “Today, as the machines whirl in This last point might be best refined through a detour the hearts of our cities day and night, destroying, erect- through some contemporary developments in ecological ing, destroying, the significant battleground of the modern thought, in which the concept of nature as such has come un- world has become the neighbourhood Blitzkrieg” [6]. This der scrutiny. Anthony Paul Smith’s Ecologies of Nature, which blitzkrieg is, for Schafer as for noise abatement activists, a imbricates ecological science, theologians Thomas Aquinas sociopolitical problem: “The general acoustic environment and Abû Sulaymân al-Sijistânî and the philosophers Spinoza of a society can be read as an indicator of social conditions and François Laruelle, demonstrates that there are at least which produce it and may tell us much about the trending two ways in which Nature has been “weaponized” and is in and evolution of that society” [7]. This social situation is a need of “decommissioning” [15]—as indicated in the work of consequence of the industrialization of society: “The sound Timothy Morton, for whom nature is a “transcendent term” sewer is much more likely to result when a society trades that “wavers between the divine and the natural” [16], and its ears for eyes, and it is certain to result when this is ac- as noted by Bruno Latour, for whom the concept of nature companied by an impassioned devotion to machines” [8]. secures a fundamentally undemocratic politics by making it In contrast to the sound sewer resulting from mechaniza- “possible to recapitulate the hierarchy of beings in a single tion, Schafer waxes lyrical about the wonders of the natural ordered series” [17]. For his own part, Smith argues that soundscape: Water, winds, the sounds appropriate to the four “while ecology as a science may not require the philosophical seasons are described with judicious citations from an im- concept of nature to function, nature is still a ‘good name’ ” pressive range of literary resources. That Schafer’s stance is [18]. Nature is not the name of a transcendence, nor is it an profoundly conservative has not escaped notice; musician ordering system overdetermining its subjects; rather, it is the David Toop dismisses Schafer’s desire for “an Edenic state of nomination of an immanence, an always already “there” that pure, permanent quietude” [9], and Steve Goodman, in his exceeds attempts to delimit it. As the title of the first chapter Sonic Warfare, is even more damning: of Ecologies of Thought puts it: “Nature Is Not Hidden, but Perverse.” In its immanence, nature is radically present in The politics of silence often assumes a conservative guise its manifestations (as per Dewdney, both lichen and vinyl), and promotes itself as a quasi-spiritual and nostalgic return whether these manifestations are dependent on the produc- to the natural. As such, it is often orientalized and roman- tive (as well as destructive) forces of weather, genetics, geol- ticizes the tranquillity unviolated by the machinations of ogy or technology. The distinction between a natural event technology, which have militarized the sonic and polluted (e.g. a rainstorm or bird migration) and a technological the rural soundscape with noise, polluted art with sonifica- event (e.g. the building of a nuclear power station or an elec- tion, polluted the city with industry, polluted attention with trical grid) loses its conceptual cogency, since nature names marketing, deafens teenagers and so on. Its disposition is what is immanent in both, an immanence that never is where almost always reactionary [10]. it is expected and never does the work we think it will do. Against the purity of nature, the contamination of mo- While space does not permit more complete discussion of dernity: It does not seem to interest Schafer that living next Smith’s resourceful and complex text, we can at least note that to a waterfall might expose one to decibel levels comparable if nature does not have the sort of transcendent qualities that to living next to a highway—natural sounds are to be valued proponents of the natural soundscape assert that it does, then precisely because they are natural: “Let nature speak with its the term synthetic soundscape requires recalibration [19]. own authentic voices” [11]. Specifically, where this term has denoted natural sounds “be- coming increasingly unnatural” (either through schizopho- Det na uralized Nature nia or through their subsumption into the soundscapes of the In contrast to the above, we might usefully juxtapose the technological landscape), we can now assert that there is no Canadian poet Christopher Dewdney’s provocation: “Vinyl “becoming unnatural” for natural sounds: Nature is, qua its is as natural as lichen” [12]. There is no reason to note that perversity, always already unnatural. Here, the work of sound city noises are necessarily “toxic” in a way that natural sounds artists Francisco López and Chris Watson is exemplary. In would not be. What Dewdney’s remark emphasizes is that the following sections of this paper, I explore two works in the framing of sounds of, say, urban density as toxic because particular: Watson’s 2013 release In St. Cuthbert’s Time [20] of their source is an illegitimate move insofar as the putative and López’s 1997 long work La Selva [21]. Both works are toxicity of a sound is related not to its essential origin but field recordings of environmental, nonhuman sounds: the to its effects on organisms. However, the suturing of sound to sounds of Lindisfarne Island off the Northumberland coast its source is vital to Schafer; the condition in which this does (Watson) and the rainy seasons in the tropical lowlands of not occur, the “splitting of sounds from their original con- Costa Rica (López). These sounds are not conspicuously ma- texts” [13], is a schizophonic situation, an aberrant condition nipulated; there is no indication of varispeed, layering, the that results in the development of “a synthetic soundscape in addition of delay or compression, etc. (They are, admittedly, which natural sounds are becoming increasingly unnatural almost certainly equalized to ensure playback fidelity, and
6 Kohut, Noise Pollution and the Eco-Politics of Sound editing has of course been done—one can scarcely produce, busy, if not noisy, soundscape; even during the quieter mo- let alone listen to, a 3-month piece of sound.) Thus, these ments, there are at least four or five sonic events occurring. works, while certainly a development of musique concrète, Another important feature to emphasize is the difficulty in do not rest easily in that genre. Furthermore, while musique identifying the precise nature of the sounds that we hear. This concrète, e.g. Pierre Schaeffer’s 1948Étude aux chemins de fer may be more than a question of my admitted unfamiliar- [22], regarded itself as the construction of sound objects, that ity with the Costa Rican rainforest; at the 27:35 moment, for is, as a means of composition and construction using sound example, a rumbling bass drone (rare enough to be noted as as a waiting-to-be-formed medium, the question of the art of an exception) seems to be produced by no “natural” agency field recordings (or, rather, the culture of nature) as practiced imaginable, human, environmental, animal or insect. in the pieces under discussion requires elucidation. How do these pieces work as a cultural/natural ecology? Both works foreground their natural, or more precisely, their Nate ur —Cultures of Sound nonhuman, origin. But there is still the question of culture Watson’s In St. Cuthbert’s Time comprises four sections cor- here: Watson refers to his works as “sonic portraits,” sug- responding to the seasons (Winter, Lechten, Sumor and Hae gesting that the locus of attention, i.e. the listener’s ear, is fest, as per Old English) and was commissioned by Durham mobile in a way similar to the eye’s movement across the University to accompany its exhibition of the early-8th- surface of a painting. López, a more gregarious artist than century Lindisfarne Gospel produced by the monks on the Watson in many ways, refers to the “transcendental dimen- eponymous island. (The island is also known for the her- sion of the sound matter by itself,” which manifests an “inner mit St. Cuthbert, whose tenure was contemporaneous with world of sound itself” [24]. This is a crucial difference, from the writing and illumination of the Gospel manuscript. St. two perspectives. First, as regards the works in and of them- Cuthbert is known for his connection to birds, making him selves: On the one hand, sound, for Watson, is a medium of a striking point of interest when considered alongside Wat- representation, a painting that at the very least evokes the son’s recordings of birdsong, which go back to the early 1980s sonic lifeworld of 8th-century Lindisfarne and, by implica- [23].) As for the recording itself, Watson was given the in- tion, the psychological features of the hermits and monks struction to provide a sonic portrait of the environment as it occupying that time and space. López, on the other hand, ex- would have been experienced by the monks and hermit of the plicitly rejects representation: “La Selva (the musical piece) is 8th century, and indeed, with the exception of some distant not a representation of La Selva (the reserve in Costa Rica).” bells ringing in the middle of “Winter” and at the melancholy La Selva is a composition of “sound matter.” While we may close of “Haefest,” we are in a hermit’s soundscape: birds and (or may not) identify a particular sound as insect or avian, other mammals, wind and water, but no sign of human pres- wind or water, the point is not the representational feature ence. Birdcalls, as befits a work dedicated to St. Cuthbert, of the sounds but rather their compositional construction predominate, but each of the four sections/movements of In as a physical medium in a delimited multiplicity. This is why St. Cuthbert’s Time are quite distinct: “Winter” is dominated López can assert that “I consider La Selva to be a piece of mu- by the constant sound of wind; “Lechten” brings the sound sic, in a very strong and profound sense of the word.” Thus, of flowing water to the foreground; and birds are almost the in Watson’s case, we have a “portrait,” and in López’s case, only sound source for “Sumor.” “Haefest” is in many ways we have a piece of composed music whose representational the most complex of the soundscapes offered here; rather qualities point directly to itself as a medium. than any identifiable sonic signature, we encounter a palpable The second crucial difference, which has to do with the absence akin to that of a sudden pressure drop or the room role of the listener in this assemblage of sound, technology tone picked up when recording an empty space. As the piece and ecology, arises at this point. We have noted the mobility comes to an end, we hear the distant sound of waves lapping afforded to the listener ofIn St. Cuthbert’s Time: as listeners, against a shore while birdcalls and the occasional flapping of we contract and dilate our attention on particular moments, wings combine with almost inaudible bells. with the repetitions of birdcalls etc. allowing us to revisit In contrast with the minimalism of In St. Cuthbert’s Time, these particular sonic events in different contexts. Further- La Selva is one continuously dense piece, beginning with a more, the natural reverb and low frequencies captured by harsh, metallic avian/insect drone at (relatively) high vol- Watson’s recording (as much a question of technical exper- ume. Throughout, there is considerable treble and, again tise as anything) provide a proprioceptive sense of distance in contrast to Watson, little by way of bass frequency. The and proximity, which amplifies the impression of being in a impression is one of an absence of background, an absence specific spatial location. In contrast, the buzzing trebles ofLa rectified about 11 minutes into the piece, when the sound of Selva make it much harder for listeners to locate themselves rain on leaves and the ground provides a contextual frame in the context of the piece. Indeed, there are times when lis- for the rainforest bird and insect trills. In fact, for the next teners might be given the impression that the actual physical hour or so, the relation between sonic foreground (event) properties of the sounds have been transmuted by López’s and background (context) oscillates: A sound that starts off craft into an undifferentiated magma—the “sound matter” as a faint background detail will eventually come to the fore itself, which is structured into nonrepresentational forms. and dominate the aural space before dropping off suddenly. This is achieved at the expense of a certain degree of bass In addition to this dynamism, La Selva is also an extremely and reverb; the foregrounded sounds, in this piece at least,
Kohut, Noise Pollution and the Eco-Politics of Sound 7 are rendered with such clarity that they seem at times to be constitute a social problem; clearly, workplace ordinances excised from their environment. Thus, the ecology developed concerning hearing protection on the factory floor, for ex- in La Selva is entirely one of López’s design, where Watson’s ample, are important bulwarks against worker exploitation. soundscape situates, through proprioceptive reverberation, However, the danger that we have illuminated in the discus- the listener in the space and time evoked. sion of noise-abatement rhetoric is the postulation of some pristine, preindustrial utopia of sonic anti-toxins from “Na- Conu cl sion ture” that counteract our self-induced contamination. The In her book The Soundscape of Modernity, Emily Thompson work of Watson and López manifests something about the notes that the architectural priorities for the new concert essence of “the soundscape” highlighted by Thompson: halls and other performance venues of the early 20th cen- A soundscape is simultaneously a physical environment tury included a suppression of naturally reverberant space. and a way of perceiving that environment; it is both a world Thompson interprets this as the technocratic control of the and a culture constructed to make sense of the world. . . . (sonic) environment: “Modern architecture was founded A soundscape, like a landscape, ultimately has more to do upon an ideology of environmental control, and acoustical with civilization than with nature, and, as such, it is con- materials transformed this ideology into architectural real- stantly under construction and always undergoing change ity” [25]. The perceived need for listeners to control their [27]. sonic environment was connected to “new worries about noise, as traditionally bothersome sources of sound like ani- We should, then, pay attention to the implications of In St. mals, peddlers and musicians were increasingly drowned Cuthbert’s Time and La Selva: The development of a sustain- out by the technological crescendo of the modern city” [26]. able ecology of sound must ground itself in the perversity of And thus we return to the question of noise pollution. At (our embeddedness in) nature; sonic ecology, for which noise absolutely no point do I intend to suggest that the environ- pollution remains a concern, must become not a question of mental effects of sounds produced by human beings do not conservation or stewardship but one of invention.
References and Notes 17 Bruno Latour, Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into De- mocracy, Catherine Porter, trans. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. 1 Quoted in Lisa Goines and Louis Hagle, “Noise Pollution: A Modern Press, 2004) p. 25. Plague,” Southern Medical Journal 100, No. 3 (2007) p. 287. 18 Smith [15] p. 157. 2 Karin Bijsterveld, Mechanical Sound: Technology, Culture and Public Problems of Noise in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA: MIT 19 For a full discussion of Smith’s text, see the An und für sich book Press, 2008) p. 17. event available at
9 David Toop, Ocean of Sound: Aether Talk, Ambient Sound and Imagi- 24 Francisco López, “Environmental Sound Matter,” 8 Kohut, Noise Pollution and the Eco-Politics of Sound ABSTRACT tions that move and inspire. His music, while standing on standing while music, His inspire. and move that tions creatingcomposi-ofcareer a action: incited Alaska in ence sense of comfort. Furthermore, beyond comfort, his experi- a provided mortality fear,his of source a being than rather mortality,own his andof sense heightened a through place the to relationship in himself to connected felt he Alaska, In for. looking been had he what found he where 1975, in travel to him spurred belong to place a for desire his man,young a LutherAdamsJohnwas composer When -Com a E words, the“dialecticaldynamicbetweentragedyanddailylife.” Lefebvre, definingrhythmanalysis,theeveryday, and,inLefebvre’s life.TheauthordrawsupontheworkofsociologistHenri everyday dissolution anddislodgelistenersfromthehabitsassumptionsof compositions andinstallations.Theirworksreplicateenvironmental by usingnaturefieldrecordingsasthefoundationalelementoftheir Jana Winderen,whorespondtounprecedentedecologicalchange MikiYui theauthoranalyzesworkoftwoartists, In thisarticle, and The Tragic ofEco-Sound Art ©2015 ISAST ©2015 files associatedwiththisissueofLMJ. foraudio,videoandothersupplementary See p Ev o e s r ers s — y John Luther Ad Luther John o d a , Rhy y t h e m WQX z a a n a R a n m , N l s, s, y e o Meet the Co the Meet w s ts s York, June 24, 2014 24, June York, k B - i r m to Alaska to p o oser n w , , e everyday. the of level the at intervention an as are they best, their At [4]. norm” consumer good’ ‘feel a as environmentalism of substance, the not but style, the promote “attempt to an is “greenwashing” generalsocial of the part movement, which relationships. At their worst, their effortsthreaten tobecome multispecies andadaptation for concern greater its by past ment that is set apart from environmental movements of the move- ecological-social larger a ofcontext the within work sets them into compositions. Eco-musicologists situate their and altersrecords, and world the in sounds to listens artist eco-electroacoustic The [3]. Allen S. Aaron musicologist nature,” humanity’s in on place reflect notes us help[s] and Sound informs a “cultural understanding of the environment issues. confront ecological reflect, canaffect and soundand ments. Eco-musicology onfocuses the ways in which music environ- critical of dissolution tragic the exposing and ing replicat- recognizing, to work their dedicating by crisis the eco-electroacoustic composers and artists are responding to of handful A [2]. point”“tipping environmental an passed already havemay approachingor are we that argue servers warnings about unprecedented ecological changes, many ob- ably intensified. Asthe U.N. Environmentinargu- Programmehas issuesworldwide and there both loss environmental position of we animals world” inthe [1]. precarious “delicate and the addresses also merits, own its action and works—hence through thought, poetry, love” [5]. “through life everyday of metamorphosis a for advocating eral ideology, which dictates daily life and masks the real, by neolib- this transcend and expose emony.to aimsLefebvre cer- cultural and religious and leisure of periods scheduled with occasionally broken consumption, and work around or to ourselves. In Western society, everyday life is organized culture rather than any concepts inherently true to the world our of ideology prominent the reflects turn in which lives, v re defines everyday life as the way that we construct our our construct we that way the as life everyday defines re In mid-1970s, the in Alaska to sojourn Adams’sfirst Since The Critique The of LEONARDO MUSICJOURNAL, V E v , sociologist Henri Lefeb Henri Life sociologist eryday , ol. 25,pp. 9–13,2015 9 One way to transform the everyday, Lefebvre argues, is to listen to silences” [8]. Among the most crucial external reconnect tragedy and day-to-day existence. rhythms that the rhythmanalyst interprets are those of na- The tragic is the non-everyday, the anti-everyday. The ir- ture, because nature and the cosmos are the originators of ruption of the tragic into daily “life turns it upside down. It is cyclical rhythm. By understanding cyclical rhythm in nature, thus possible to make out a dialectical dynamic between trag- the rhythmanalyst is better able to sense when linear rhythms edy and daily life. . . . Tragedy as an oeuvre reconnects these of society become interruptive or destructive. Contemporary aspects: it seeks both to transform daily life through poetry sociologists have used rhythmanalysis primarily to dissect and to conquer death through the resurrection of the tragic the rhythm of urban spaces. One of my aims in this article is character” [6]. The term tragedy here refers to tragic art, to apply rhythmanalysis to perhaps its most logical subjects: which provides us a way to enact and dispel our fears rather music and sound. In the words of theorist and musician Da- than to reason them away. Just as history tells us what has vid Dunn, “the physical act of using our aural sense . . . can happened, tragic art tells us what might happen, following become a means to practice and engender integrative behav- a cause-and-effect chain to its grimmest logical conclusion ior” and to create an argument for greater ecological aware- [7]. The power of tragedy is to dislodge an individual from ness [9]. In this way, eco-composers and artists attempt to his quotidian life and to remind him of his temporal state. transform daily life through tragedy, using field recordings of In his final book, Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Ev- dissolving or decaying environments and organisms: eroding eryday Life, Lefebvre focuses on the rhythmanalyst, an in- coral reefs, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, dying species. dividual who analyzes the rhythms of daily life, by which he means the interaction among time, place and expenditure An Eco-Poetics of Abandoned Spaces of energy, in order to perceive what the everyday hides. The Deep ecology is the formal poetic technique of imagining rhythmanalyst discerns what is real within the constructed an apocalyptic end of nature with the goal that the process and listens to the “world, and above all to what are disdain- of intellectually “ending” the world will prevent exactly such fully called noises, which are said without meaning, and to destruction in real life. The reader of deep ecology writings murmurs [rumeurs], full of meaning—and finally he will digests the death of nature in order to become more reverent Fig. 1. Miki Yui, Island site, six-channel sounds, piezo speakers, Around Sound Festival, Lamma Island, Hong Kong, 2009. (Photo © Miki Yui) 10 Pezanoski-Browne, The Tragic Art of Eco-Sound toward actual nature [10]. This strategy is not without con- homes and of Lamma Island. Listeners maneuvered through troversy: Eco-critic Timothy Morton, for example, questions the buildings, hearing sounds from various locations. the ethics of mourning something that is in the process of In an interview, Yui said that while the remnants of clothing dying but is not yet dead. He prefers the terms melancholia and pots seen in the derelict homes suggested tragic occur- to mourning and dark ecology to deep ecology, and he argues rences for whoever once lived there, the spaces are peaceful that “melancholia (letting the dead stick in our throat) is and poetic. Nevertheless, she avoided simply aestheticizing more ethically refined than mourning (allowing them to be decay by disrupting the composition with occasional dis- digested)” [11]. The ethical way to deal with an ecological cordant noises. She also avoided it by aligning herself with death is to love the dying thing, the Frankenstein’s monster- Sound Pocket’s mission to preserve sound and elevate the like form of nature, “precisely in [its] artificiality, rather than practice of listening. Within this context, we can say that Yui’s seeking [its] naturalness and authenticity”—an ecology with- work preserved a transitional space that has been encroached out nature, nature being a conflicted term in our thoroughly upon by nature and will soon be encroached upon again by anthropocentric moment in time [12]. development. It allowed the listener to enter an abandoned In her essay “Mourning and the Melancholia in the An- space and move through it while recognizing that her arrival thropocene,” Margaret Ronda outlines a new form: eco- not only altered the space, but also damaged it. The listener poetics. Differing from dark ecology, this form “emphasize[s] never lost the sense, even within the aesthetically beautiful ecological interrelationality and complicity in environmental and aurally evocative installation, that her presence signaled destruction, and often explore[s] collective feelings of vul- both a human wave coming toward Lamma from the rest of nerability, hopelessness, and dread” [13]. If the intentions of Hong Kong and time passing as development transforms its dark ecology are to argue that the ecological crisis is indeed spaces. Island provoked a subtle shift in identification that happening and to linger in the resulting melancholic state, expanded outward from the listener to include the island’s then works of eco-poetics constitute a paradigm shift—one spaces and its other, nonhuman organisms. lingers in that melancholic state while emphasizing one’s cul- pability in creating it. Peserr vation of Hidden Sounds and Spaces Miki Yui’s Island (Fig. 1) embodies these concepts. She de- Before Jana Winderen began to create sound works, she scribes her works as “small sounds” made up of noises she studied mathematics, chemistry and fish ecology—her records in her everyday life, often but not exclusively drawn background endowed her with a deep sense of how organ- from nature [14]. Yui installed Island in 2009 on Lamma Is- isms interact with one another and with their environments, land in Hong Kong as part of the Around Sound Festival, particularly through sound. Winderen captures sounds from organized by the nonprofit Sound Pocket, which was created ecosystems that humans usually cannot hear, submerging hy- by anthropologist and sound enthusiast Yeung Yang to fill a drophones in seawater or in other remote spaces. She records gap in Hong Kong’s sound-based art scene. Sound Pocket is sounds in registers usually imperceptible to human hearing, devoted to increasing awareness of soundscape listening in which she slows to an audible range. For Winderen, listen- Hong Kong as well as preserving sonic history in the continu- ing is of critical importance, and she develops her works by ally developing metropolis. Participating artists at the festival “slowly collaging things together, more like sculpting than live together as a temporary community on Lamma Island, writing” [15]. While she creates works in which the sounds of working on pieces together. fish, insects, or other living creatures are often unprocessed, Lamma Island is the third-largest island in Hong Kong Winderen also layers sounds heavily, sometimes processes and has developed relatively slowly. Connected to the rest of these layers, and “experiments with “microphone selection, the city by a single ferry, roughly 6,000 people live here, and editing techniques, and overlaying techniques with a com- the height of all buildings on Lamma is restricted to three poser’s ear, not a documentalist’s ear” [16]. floors. Transport on the island includes bicycling, boating Winderen’s project Silencing of the Reefs was commissioned and walking. While 7 million people live in Hong Kong and by the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Academy in are packed into highrises in most neighborhoods, Lamma Vienna as part of the TBA21 Academy. The TBA21 Academy Island is tranquil and in many ways surreal—although as included a working voyage to Iceland, Boston, Belize, the more people seek out its quiet lifestyle, it is becoming more Dominican Republic and Panama on the vessel Dardanella, developed. on which Winderen was a resident artist from 2011 to 2014. Yui installed her six-channel work in crumbling Lamma For Silencing of the Reefs, Winderen meticulously recorded houses with vegetation peeking out of their nonexistent roofs, the soundscapes of reefs and neighboring ecosystems (Fig. 2). spaces where the sounds of insects, birds, wind and the ocean Coral reefs are immensely sensitive to changes in water tem- are easily heard. Yui weaved electronic sounds that she cre- perature, sound pollution and acidification, and Winderen ated in and out of the live sounds of these places, often high- recorded the sound of their disintegrating environments. She lighting the environmental noises. At times, her composition asks, are the “changes too fast to adjust to, and are we just was a melodic amalgamation of tones; at others, harsh noises documenting the changes happening without being able to disrupted the tranquility of the island. The noises resembled do anything about them? Will the reefs be silenced before we those of traffic, metallic rain and howling guitar feedback, even have had the chance to listen to them and even begin to all of which interrupted the natural tones of the abandoned fully understand these fragile ecosystems?” [17] Pezanoski-Browne, The Tragic Art of Eco-Sound 11 Fig. 2. Jana Winderen collecting and recording sounds and samples: steaming, boiling and ice with a SoundField microphone and two hydrophones for Silencing of the Reefs, Krisuvik, Iceland, 2013. (Photo © Finnbogi Petursson) Freeze to Melt is a composition within the Silencing of changes are happening, no matter how many people wish the Reefs project featuring eerie, dark tones and creaking, to deny it. We can hear it in the melting, the bubbling, the crashing sounds that crescendo and dip. Layered together, cracking, the roaring and, most of all, the silencing. Yet by the high-pitched squeaks, screeches, howls and odd chirps revealing these truths, mediated through their subjective in- begin to morph into the sounds of breathing and yelping tentions, these artists create works that move beyond simple creatures, giving the composition a feeling of strange danger reportage. and bringing to mind Nietzsche’s argument that music pre- Winderen’s knowledge of the organisms of the coral-reef dates appearance and that therefore language cannot touch ecosystem permits her to interpret and express an environ- its symbolic core [18]. Each of Winderen’s sounds is recog- ment previously unknown to most of us, and the mythopo- nizable in nature, yet when combined, they create a sense of etic tone of her work suggests that there are aspects of the mythopoetic horror, with each “pop” accentuating the threat ecosystem that we may never know, especially as we actively of disappearance. The composition seems to crack under the take part in its destruction. We start to hear a part of our weight of the end. world that is more than us yet at its core speaks of our true Recording under water all over the world over the last 9 essence. Through hearing these works, the listener develops years—and at reef sites since 2011—Winderen is committed an increased desire to “focus on connectedness, on interde- to exposing the global dissolution of coral reefs. She imbues pendence, and on relationships” among all living beings as her pieces with a sense of tragedy, mystery and grief and she senses the mystery of how we are intertwined [19]. adopts a decidedly non-humancentric perspective. Through The contradiction of tragic catharsis is that by experienc- listening and recording unknown spaces and sounds out of ing melancholy, grief and fear through art, one releases those the range of normal human perception, she allows listeners very feelings in oneself. The hope is that through tragedy, a to perceive tragic environmental loss from the imagined van- listener will begin to recognize the causes of a crisis, lead- tage point of sea creatures. By exposing hidden worlds, she ing to positive outcomes even as the art expresses negative reestablishes wonder and mystery in our own world. ones. When Lefebvre writes about reconnecting tragedy and Artists such as Yui and Winderen, who devote themselves the everyday, he is advocating for works that ground us in a to documenting environmental dissolution, perform critical sense of our mortality and, consequently, a sense of our time/ work by documenting the fact that unprecedented ecological space in the world. So much of the way that Western culture 12 Pezanoski-Browne, The Tragic Art of Eco-Sound organizes time and orders space removes the individual from modes of moving through the world. The works of Yui and an understanding of himself as a part of an ecosystem. Works Winderen, through their affective frame of melancholy and of eco-electroacoustic sound and music replicate the sounds tragedy, reveal a glimmer of hope for change and suggest of environmental dissolution and, through highlighting these that we can emphasize our relationships to the ecosystems often-overlooked events, shift our conceptualization of daily of which we are a part. life. Listeners, by listening deeply, begin to privilege certain References and Notes 13 Margaret Ronda, “Mourning and Melancholia in the Anthropocene,” Post45 (June 2013): Pezanoski-Browne, The Tragic Art of Eco-Sound 13 The Sonic Witness On the Political Potential of Field Recordings in Acoustic Art Gerald Fiebi g Contemporary sonic artworks often use field recordings from T of the practices are tied to an idea of the genuineness of the C places of historic or social significance to address political issues. documentary recordings they employ, which, as we have R This article discusses relevant works for radio and fixed media by S seen, also informs Benjamin’s concept of the aura. Peter Cusack, Jacob Kirkegaard, Eliška Cílková, Anna Friz and ABT A Public Studio, Stéphane Garin and Sylvestre Gobart, Ultra-red, Benjamin saw the demise of aura as liberating, with re- and Matthew Herbert and outlines how they use both audio and production technology bridging the gap between iconic art- visual/textual information to create awareness of the issues inscribed in works and “the masses”—a tool for the democratization of these places, from current environmental concerns to the memory culture. Therefore, his text tends to cast aura as something of genocide and displacement. deeply reactionary, if not fascist. In the works I discuss here, however, the contextualized use of field recordings is a means “to politicize art” [3] in a progressive way, as advocated by In his seminal 1936 essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Me- Benjamin. At first glance, the aura-based strategy of these chanical Reproduction,” Walter Benjamin claims that there is works would seem to contradict Benjamin’s negative view one immaterial quality of an artwork that necessarily evades of aura, but upon closer analysis these works confirm Mow- reproduction, and that is its genuineness: itt’s insight that Benjamin’s terminology must be understood The genuineness of a thing is the quintessence of everything in its historical context, which “implies that the question of about it since its creation that can be handed down, from aura must always be posed anew, even if the question means its material duration to the historical witness that it bears. something different each time” [4]. . . . We can encapsulate what stands out here by using the The obvious difference between music (and its technologi- term “aura” [1]. cal reproduction)—as discussed by Mowitt qua Benjamin— and field recordings is that musical works exist as original John Mowitt [2] has shown how the concept of aura—and human artifacts before they are reproduced. In contrast to its decay—can be applied fruitfully to acoustic art forms. this, field recordings are original artifacts themselves, be- Mowitt’s focus is on The Sound of Music in the Era of Its Elec- cause what ontologically precedes them is not a “more origi- tronic Reproducibility, but it opens up perspectives for ap- nal” artwork but simply acoustic reality. It is only through plying Benjamin’s concepts to nonmusical sonic artworks as the act of recording that they become artifacts at all. Only well. For instance, the aspects of aura quoted above—the gen- through recording do parts of the sonic continuum acquire uineness of an artifact bearing witness to a specific time and the possibility of becoming aesthetic objects to be passed on place—are crucial to the aesthetic of an increasing number through time and bear witness to a recordist’s presence at a of artistic practices that have been emerging across various certain place and time in history. genres of acoustic art in recent years. These practices share a Bearing witness is also a key factor in Peter Cusack’s prac- concern with political issues, and they all address these issues tice of “sonic journalism,” exemplified in his project Sounds by using field recordings from specific places with particular from Dangerous Places: historical or social significance. The following discussion of some examples of such practices will show how the politics Sonic journalism is based on the idea that all sound, in- cluding non-speech, gives information about places and Gerald Fiebig (artist, writer), Kazboeckstrasse 21, 86157 Augsburg, Germany. events and that careful listening provides valuable insights Email: 14 LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 25, pp. 14–16, 2015 ©2015 ISAST heard in their own right, when the focus is on their original the object but the medium of our perception. It is what we factual and emotional content, and when they are valued hear in” [10]. As Tim Ingold argues, the sound of a place en- for what they are rather than as source material for further ters the listener’s body just like breath, which creates a com- work as is often the case in sound art or music [5]. pelling symbol for the listener’s connection to a place and the bodily presence of others that were there before her. Thus, The reference to “factual content” and the choice of the field recordings are also suitable for alluding to What Isn’t term “journalism,” with its associated codes of objectivity, ve- There, as in the title of an installation project by Anna Friz racity and fact-checking, emphasizes Cusack’s trust in sound and Public Studio. In gathering the sonic materials for What recording as a “witness” of certain places and conditions. The Isn’t There,the artists sought out the sites of former Palestin- recordist acts as a reporter gathering information in places of ian villages in Israel in March 2014 and would “just simply danger, “whether it is pollution, social injustice, military or record whatever we found there” [11], from parking lots to geopolitical. The project asks, ‘What can we learn by listening factories to war memorials: “These sorts of things told us a to the sounds of dangerous places?’ ” [6] lot about how much things have changed but also just sort The lesson of Cusack’s recordings from the Chernobyl of what memories are still retained by the landscape” [12]. Exclusion Zone in Ukraine and the Caspian Oil Fields in A similar attempt at representing absence through field Azerbaijan—the two places that feature most prominently in recordings is Gurs. Drancy. Gare de Bobigny. Auschwitz. Cusack’s project—seems to be this: Even when we know that Birkenau. Chelmo-Kulmhof. Majdaneck. Sobibor. Treblinka these places are emblematic of the operation of technologies by Stéphane Garin and Sylvestre Gobart (Gruenrekorder/ and policies that endanger life on our planet, they “can be Bruit Clair, 2011), which captures the sounds from the sites both sonically and visually compelling, even beautiful and of former concentration camps and other sites related to the atmospheric. There is, often, an extreme dichotomy between Nazi-perpetrated genocide, which are meticulously listed in an aesthetic response and knowledge of the ‘danger’ ” [7]. the title. As in Sounds from Dangerous Places, the contrast Cusack’s sounds encourage listeners to contemplate, in the between the apparent innocuousness of the soundscape and very act of listening, the network of social and political signi- the atrocities committed in the very same places stirs listen- fications and power structures within which his “dangerous ers’ imaginations. places” are enmeshed. Sound seems ideal for addressing the A different, yet related, type of political artwork based on dependencies and ambiguities related to these places because field recordings uses the sounds of political demonstrations “listening situates us within a relational frame whose focus, as source material for electronic music. La Economía Nueva clarity, and directness are endlessly supplemented and dis- (Operation Gatekeeper) by Ultra-red (Fat Cat Records, 2001) placed by the subtle pulses, mishearings, and fragmentary or “The Whisper of Friction” by Radio Boy (aka Matthew richness of relating” [8]. The veracity of the “historical wit- Herbert) from the album The Mechanics of Destruction (Ac- ness” presenting these recordings is crucial in getting listen- cidental Records, 2001) respectively credit as sound sources ers to engage with this network of associations. After all, a demonstration against the militarization of the U.S./Mexico why should they follow the artist’s invitation to reflect upon border at the San Isidro Port of Entry on 10 December 2000 a place he claims he recorded if it turns out he lied to them and anti-globalization protests in London on 1 May 2001. By in the first place? placing the sounds of demonstrations at the heart of their The peculiar aesthetic quality of dangerous places, particu- practice, these works encourage political activism on the part larly the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, has inspired many other of their listeners without indoctrinating them. These works artists. Jacob Kirkegaard has captured the atmosphere of its also validate the “agonistic” view that in a living democracy, deserted buildings in Four Rooms (Touch Records, 2006) and not only should political differences be negotiated in the Wermutstropfen (West German Radio, 2011). The latter piece, sphere of parliamentary politics, they should also be played a collage of field recordings, is closest to Cusack’s documen- out in public places “where conflicting points of view are con- tary approach. Four Rooms, on the other hand, employs a Lu- fronted without any possibility of a final reconciliation” [13], cier-inspired process of playing the sounds of empty rooms thus keeping the process of political engagement in motion. back in the same rooms and re-recording them. The resulting Like the other artists discussed here, the strategy of Ultra-red resonant drones heighten the sense of looming danger. In and Radio Boy relies on the truthfulness of the claim that the her piece Zone (Czech Radio, 2013), Eliška Cílková actively source recordings were actually made at the rallies. engages with sound sources found onsite, “seeking out the As works of sonic art, all of the artworks discussed here abandoned musical instruments of the Chernobyl Zone in rely heavily on the specific experiential quality of listening to order to visit and record them” [9]. Kirkegaard’s and Cílková’s their actual sound, but they only become signifiers in a politi- strategies are not purely documentary as Cusack’s are, yet the cal discourse through the listener’s knowing that they come integrity of their work equally relies on the aura of the real from places with specific connotations. This knowledge, place: The broken piano one hears in Zone gains much of however, cannot be transmitted by the ear alone. Therefore, its emotional impact from the knowledge that it was in fact the works examined above supplement their sonic elements abandoned due to a nuclear disaster. with additional information in the form of photographs and/ While an image presents itself as an object that allows the or text—as CD liner notes or whole books—to establish a viewer to step back and distance herself from it, sound “is not contract of veracity with the listener and to “engage the rich Fiebig, The Sonic Witness 15 cultural, technical, social, ontological implications of [the ogy, on the other hand, is predicated on using audio record- sounds’] origins” [14]. ings to preserve intact soundscapes of mostly natural origin. In other words, these works use sound as part of a larger This practice often risks turning a deaf ear to the social and conceptual strategy, as advocated by Seth Kim-Cohen in his political aspects of the acoustic lifeworld, thus “undermin- book In the Blink of an Ear. This differentiates these sound ing the soundscape in general, for what the soundscape (and artists’ take on field recordings from two major traditions the environment in general) teaches us is that place is always that also draw on recordings of ambient sounds. Much elec- more than its snapshot” [16]. In the works presented above, troacoustic music in the tradition of Pierre Schaeffer uses however, enough information about the places is provided field recordings as raw materials for the extraction of sonic to spark a critical discussion of the related issues. By rais- objects, proposing that audiences should “listen to the objet ing issues of origin, context and agenda in relation to field sonore blindly, ignoring who or what might have made it, recordings, the concept of aura can help to bring out the with what materials, or for what purpose” [15]. Acoustic ecol- political significance of such audio material. References and Notes Leaves: Sound and the Environment in Artistic Practice (Paris: Double Entendre, 2007) p. 11. 1 Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduc- tion (London: Penguin, 2008) p. 7. 11 Anna Friz interviewed by Meira Asher, “RA106fm_#05,” on “Ra- dioart 106fm,” 03:08: 16 Fiebig, The Sonic Witness Power Struggles The Politics of Composing with Sounds of Protest T u l l i s Rennie The author challenges perceptions of authorship within the T there is something more to discover in participating, listen- C practice of field recording, discussing sonic arts responses A ing, recording and active engagement through sound. to political subject matter and examining the power dynamic A number of complications and quandaries present them- B among recordist/composer, subject and listener. He considers A STR compositions drawing on recordings of protests as a medium to selves with this type of activity: Disseminating recordings, represent political content without recourse to language. composing with them, and the act of recording itself are all politically loaded. Potential problems range from cultural ap- propriation to exploiting the top-down role of the composer I have joined a number of politically motivated protests in as a self-elected representative of the people. My motiva- places where I have lived and worked. Years spent in Bar- tions to compose are equally political and artistic—another celona meant I witnessed the birth of Los Indignados [1]. problematic balance to strike. Can the field recordist and After moving to Belfast to commence a Ph.D., I participated composer effect positive change with work of this nature? in a “No Silence for Peace” rally during the “flag” riots of Could engagement with political action through sound alter late 2012 [2] (Fig. 1). Working recently toward a community elements of the cause in which it intervenes? Where does sound-art project in Complexo da Maré, Rio de Janeiro [3], documentation end and artwork begin? And a primary ques- I was invited to join a protest against military occupation of tion remains: why sound in isolation? the favela (Fig. 2). In each of these locations I spent time gaining an under- Sound as Information standing of some of the contextual issues and established Peter Cusack’s concept of sonic journalism is based on the personal connections strong enough to want to participate. notion that all sound, including nonspeech, transmits impor- However, as an outsider—a migrant, a newcomer, a visitor— tant information about places and events [6]. He acknowl- to the communities demonstrating, in some senses I held edges that, although language and visual images give basic an objective viewpoint. I was not part of any overtly activist information in arguably more explicit form than sound, field group but rather was invited by friends or made aware of recordings “transmit a powerful sense of spatiality, atmo- events through social media. sphere and timing. . . . They give a compelling impression of As a composer using field recordings as artistic material, what it might actually be like to be there” [7]. I find my ear is drawn to the sound of demonstrations and In Cusack’s Sounds from Dangerous Places [8], he engages their rich, powerful sonic messages. I have documented with sites that have suffered major environmental damage or these through field recordings and interviews, shared some nuclear fallout or are located at the edges of military zones. sounds online [4] and created compositions based on my He elaborates on the title, writing, “The danger is not nec- experiences [5]. As a participant in such events who works essarily to a short-term visitor, but to the people who live artistically with the sounds, I note that my readings are mul- there or through the location’s role in geo-political power tiple: I am both protestor and observer, my recordings both structures” [9]. He documents as an informed outsider and documentary and artistic. I am guided by an instinct that presents the work in artistic form, in this case as raw field recordings on a CD for personal listening. Tullis Rennie (composer, field recordist), Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen’s Cusack believes that listeners understand field record- University Belfast. Email: ©2015 ISAST LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 25, pp. 17–20, 2015 17 Fig. 1. Peace Rally in Belfast, 16 December 2012. (Photo © Tullis Rennie) approach functions well when recordings are heard alongside terials and composed sounds derived from these. Spectro- illustrative images and texts, for example in the beautifully morphological [12] and sociopolitical properties are given presented book that accompanies Cusack’s CD. equal importance with the aim to “maintain a creative and If sonic artists prefer not to provide accompanying text, analytic relationship to both the materiality and sociality of spoken commentary or images, it can be potentially difficult sound” [13]. The abstracted sounds are intended to support for a listening audience to understand the contextual detail the sociopolitical content of the original field recordings. The held within many field recordings. Furthermore, the practice process extrapolates the contextual information learned by of field recording as an art form often distances recordists the recordist/composer while in the field and communicates from the act of recording, separating them from authorial it through musical means. Here, ethnographic field notes are decision-making and editing processes. Unlike Cusack’s heard as abstract sound, elaborating and augmenting the work, the recordist’s active agency within the field is not of- original recordings. ten taken into account and, in the case of overtly political The readings of the events in question are subjective, but causes, their connection (or disconnection) with the theme perhaps no more than when presenting edited field record- is unaddressed. ings, except that they are more explicit about the presence I suggest that composition could act as a way of transcend- of the author. The act of field recording includes numerous ing these difficulties, acting as a mediator and translator be- choices, such as the event, location, time of day and position tween field recording and the listening public. Composed to record. Subsequent authorial decisions are made when se- sound here acts as a conduit, intended to make clear both the lecting and editing recordings to present. Artists may splice factual and emotional content surrounding the sound and sounds together to create a hyperreal synopsis of events—for acknowledging the recordist’s connection to and interaction example, in Christopher DeLaurenti’s “overtly activist” Pro- with the field and the field recording. test Symphonies [14]. Many recordists exert influence over their recordings through EQ, compression and other post- So cio-Sonic Composition production techniques. The chosen means of public dissemi- When taking the sounds of protest into the studio I follow nation—whether presented on CD, online, in concert or in a a “socio-sonic” approach to composition that combines eth- gallery—also influences the listener. nography, field recording and electroacoustic composition A field recording is often unacknowledged as an equally [11]. Recordings and the experiences gained making them strong product of the recordist’s personality, experience and are both consciously channeled for compositional use. The technique. Considering the inherent subjectivity of any re- resulting works mix unprocessed recordings, interview ma- cording, it seems a small and natural step that composed 18 Rennie, Power Struggles sound materials could also be added to this process. If un- same story form a part of daily democratic life and inform processed field recordings and socio-sonic compositions are our reception and understanding of it. understood to have similar levels of authorship and subjec- What if we were to embrace the difficulty and friction that tivity, both then are struggling with the problematic notion of appear between field recordings and composers’ interactions cultural appropriation in their output. How can either party with them rather than battling, hiding or ignoring them? claim their sonic work is ethically sound? What is the distri- Composition might then act as a framework for these in- bution of power among artist, subject matter and listener? ternal conflicts to coexist in parallel and begin to engage in dialogue. Artistic responses to field recordings could lead to Power Dynamics new and different understandings of the events in question. Articulating composer intention and position is the most Audiences may be similarly undecided about their role difficult task when combining politically charged sound within a protest or reception of a composition derived from with idiosyncratic original composition. Text and language recordings of it. Audiences are composed of equally multi- are commonly used qualifiers, and while the written word faceted and independent-minded individuals, however, and may be seen to have fundamental flaws in communicating sonic art might serve to offer reassurance in the light of their content, these are rarely discussed outside academia. confusion rather than searching to provide concrete answers. Sound composition is not such a widely shared vocabu- Composition, in a move toward a “redistribution of creative lary—it is arguably no more flawed than text, but much less agency” [15], could look to provide a fresh way to engage with familiar to a wider public. Being misinterpreted or simply ideas, a platform for debate, a pause for reflection. It could causing offense are real possibilities for the composer but stress-test the boundaries where activism and observation, should not be a deterrent. Variations in the portrayals of the subjective and the impartial intersect [16]. public events are common occurrences—for example, the In “Listening, Meaning and Power,” Michael Gallagher debates surrounding different journalistic accounts of the presents the audience’s role as making rather than receiving Fig. 2. Protest in Complexo da Maré, 14 April 2014. (Photo © Tullis Rennie) Rennie, Power Struggles 19 meaning when in the act of listening [17]. He writes, “it may making that public. Music can amplify the voices shouting be helpful to recognize that listening is more ambiguous (in to be heard; composition can add contextual, emotional and relation to meaning) and more ambivalent (in relation to personal response to those events; and sonic art can act as a power) than is commonly supposed” [18]. This is not to ex- lens and a mirror—to see our lives from a different perspec- cuse or downplay an overtly political position any composer tive, and ourselves within that. could take but does allow for the audience to make their own minds up about the artistic intentions of a sound work. Conu cl sion A compositional response to the sound of political protest If sound itself enacts power [19], as the act of listening [20] has further advantages. Hearing these sounds disseminated does equally, we should examine the ethical implications of across concert halls, domestic sound systems and laptop making, presenting, composing and listening to sociopoliti- speakers could widen the engagement with the political mes- cal field recordings. If the act of field recording itself is as sage or debate in question. Any compositional response to politicized as much as the document it produces and the current affairs will beafter the heat of the moment, purely as compositions it may inspire, we can conclude that sonic art a matter of logistics—that is, the time needed to compose. presents a precarious but potent and valuable medium to rep- Therefore, there will be a re-interrogation of the issues poten- resent and communicate political content without recourse tially from a different angle, and simultaneously a reflexive to language. Sonic art is an approach in which we “under- look at the composers’ role in the field. The final composi- stand ourselves to be part of its soundscape, not at its centre tion will be a reflection of that individual’s interaction with but simultaneous with it” [21]. the event, but the examples discussed here show value in References and Notes 12 Dennis Smalley, “Spectromorphology: Explaining Sound-Shapes,” Organised Sound 2, No. 2, 107–126 (1997). 1 Also known as the “15-M” movement, a broad-based protest not affiliated with any traditional political party, demanding radical 13 Steve Feld and Donald Brenneis, “Doing Anthropology in Sound,” change in Spanish politics. American Ethnologist 31, No. 4, 461–474 (2004). 2 Press Association, “Belfast Peace Marchers Rally over Union Flag 14 “I fuse raw recordings of political struggle, battlefield audio, and Violence,” The Guardian (16 December 2012): 20 Rennie, Power Struggles ABSTRACT film film nouncementthe excerpt oneaftercameyear a rough-cut of an- This researchfordementia[1]. funding in cantincrease signifi- a pledging Challenge, Dementia government’s his of launch the announced minister prime U.K. the 2012, In stages ofthedisease. ofdementia,eveninthefinal associated healthbenefitstosufferers onemeansofchannelingsuch that biometricgamingmightoffer presents couldbeaddressedthroughmusictherapyandproposes considerswhethersomeofthechallengesthatdementia This article general health,andindementiaAlzheimer’s diseaseinparticular. research revealsevidencethatmusiccanplayapositiverolein care. Thesearchforcurativemedicinesisongoing,butscientific authorizing additionalfundingfordementiaresearchandhealth launcheditsDementiaChallenge, In 2012,theU.K.government Dementia, MusicandBiometricGaming ©2015 ISAST when relevance direct of be could research such findings of The musicresponses[5]. brainitstoand derstanding the of un- better a toward strides enabling are topics related and behavior emotion, cognition, language, memory, music, complexinterplayamong the researchexploring associated and techniquesbrain-imaging formation.Developments in Henry’strans- for catalyst true the questioning others and [4] music of power therapeutic the advocating some sions, is listening to his favorite music. evident stimulus for Henry’s dramatic reanimation is that he onlyRemarkably, the lyrics. remembered singing even and tive, capable of answering questions, recalling favorite songs communica-animatedand highly is he end, its bybut sive, change: At the start of the clip, he appears largely unrespon- [3]. dementia advanced from suffering man a on power mative to present tangible video documentation of music’s transfor- files associatedwiththisissueofLMJ. foraudio,videoandothersupplementary See [2] was posted on YouTube,on posted was [2] appears which t H C e l l Sufferers and caregivers face problem. significant the of challenges: prevalence managing and scale the demonstrate tics statis- sobering These populationelderly[10]. the in deaths people live with the disease, which accounts for one in three S from dementia [9]; in the United States, more than 5 million In the UnitedDR Kingdom, approximately 800,000 people suffer A application attempted. surelyto be deserves of symptoms (even if only temporary), then research into this cognitive functioning and well-being or provide some relief forAlzheimer’sdementiaor improvecouldit but if disease, Admittedly,cure a resultin to unlikely is gamingbiometric government’s aimsthe ofdressing the Challenge.Dementia ad- toward way some go might it dementia, sufferers of for specifically designed are and music of benefits positive the exploit which of some games, biometric of shape the in lic pub- general the to accessible made and achieved be could synthesis a such If development. game and therapy music interdisciplinary synthesis of scientific and medical research, an through power music’s transformative of potential true possibilities and wider applications of biometric gaming [8]. the exploreintentionto its in serious is industry games the cations for commercial biometric gaming sensors show that conceptualplans. Morethese generally, recentpatent appli- to gravitas added display on sensors andhardware gaming of array varied The symptoms. their of alleviation some or diseases these progressionof the slowpotentially might [7] relationthatbiometricsuggestinggamesgaming,in to ease larly, participants mentioned dementia and Alzheimer’s dis- detect a person’s cognitive ability or memory. More particu- tomeans a as gamesusing of possibility broached the there gaming Discussions of [6]. wellness and potential health of context the the within of glimpse a offered Francisco explore? to avenues less-traveled other, be there might buttherapy, music and care dementia of fields the in practically applied d Perhaps there has never been a better time to exploreto the time better a Perhaps been never hasthere San in Expo and Conference NeuroGaming 2014 The e s i n g t LEONARDO MUSICJOURNAL, V h e De m e n t i a C h a l len ol. 25,pp. 21–24,2015 g e 21 changing needs as the disease progresses; coping with the cognitive training, exercise and social games” targeted to- costs of care and associated resources; managing difficult or ward dementia, but they suggest that the dementia-related challenging behavior; avoiding social isolation; and main- gaming field is still “uncharted” [24]. Their latter statement taining a decent quality of life. is even more applicable to music-based dementia gaming, a Music can play a role in addressing some of these chal- field in which few explorations have been made. lenges. Music therapy reports, case studies and scientific re- Currently, one of the few video games designed to exploit search provide tangible evidence of music’s positive benefits the health benefits of music or music therapy is MINWii, in the context of dementia care. For example, such studies a simple music therapy tool developed for Alzheimer’s and have shown reduced levels of agitation, anxiety and depres- dementia sufferers. It allows users to play predefined songs sion [11]; amelioration of problematic behavior [12]; and and to improvise on a virtual keyboard, and its objective improved social conditioning and mood [13]. Some studies is to reduce behavioral symptoms that can lead to institu- point to improvements in cognitive functioning [14] and tionalization. The developers claim that the game improves specific types of memory recall [15]. Surprising additional self-image, encouraging “renarcissization” [25]. Although in- health benefits have also been found suggesting that music teresting, the range of benefits offered by the game is limited therapy can result in enhanced parasympathetic activities in scope when compared to those detailed in the scientific lit- [16]; reduced congestive heart failure [17]; and improvements erature on music therapy in general. Furthermore, the game in systolic blood pressure, as it has a homeostatic effect and also requires a certain amount of control and so might not helps to prevent heart and brain diseases [18]. A number be suitable for late-stage sufferers—yet the potential for other of studies have suggested that music therapy can result in therapeutic biometric game applications increases exponen- increased melatonin levels in the blood [19] and increased tially for such patients, whose movements are uncontrolled, “natural killer” lymphocyte cells [20]. One particularly in- concentration is limited and normal interactions are difficult. teresting study even proposes that listening to music facili- tates neurogenesis—the regeneration and repair of cerebral Bior met ic Gaming nerves—by “adjusting the secretion of steroid hormones, In the context of dementia-related games, a synthesis of mu- ultimately leading to cerebral plasticity” [21]. sic therapy and biometric gaming has yet to be attempted. Clearly a full discussion of such research is beyond the If appropriately developed, however, such a synthesis might scope of this article, but there is undoubtedly enough evi- offer the possibility of interaction, emotional expression or dence to assert that music triggers profound physiological communication without the necessity of physical movement, and psychological changes and holds the potential to offer speech, physical game controllers, technological know-how, tangible benefits for people suffering from dementia and Alz prior gaming experience or the ability to learn and remember heimer’s disease. Our challenge is not only to research such new skills. In cases of advanced dementia, simple wearable evidence further but also to apply the research in practical devices might be used to provide some indication of stress, and accessible ways for those living with the debilitating dis- engagement, mood or emotional state, and caregivers could eases and to intensify music’s positive benefits in daily life. use such biometric data to offer customized music therapy Music therapists have considerable expertise and experi- treatments, improving well-being, quality of life and ulti- ence in the therapeutic application of music in dementia care; mately health. Wearable haptic [26] technologies might fur- however, many people do not have access to music therapists, ther enhance such treatments by providing tactile feedback and those who do might have only infrequent or short-term based on the biometric data that the gaming system receives. access. For this reason, it is necessary to find additional ways To realize such goals, developers and other researchers to deliver music therapy’s benefits to the general population. might explore a number of possible directions, ranging from passive approaches that require minimal active, conscious Teh c nological Developments or creative user input to highly interactive systems requir- The popularity and proliferation of digital technologies and ing significant levels of physical interaction, active control computer/video games indicates one route through which and creativity. these benefits could be channeled. Although the develop- ment of enabling technologies to support those with disabili- Passive Systems ties and progressive medical conditions is not new, interest For people with advanced dementia, biometric gaming apps in health-related gaming is growing. could be linked to streaming music services or large pre- Recent developments include the Forest Project [22] (a loaded sound or music banks, possibly organized by genre virtual reality video game) and NeuroRacer (a driving sim- or sound classification. Devices such as smart watches or ulation game). The Forest Project gives late-stage demen- headphones with integrated sensors could capture biomet- tia sufferers interactive control of a naturalistic environ- ric data and send it wirelessly to gaming apps, which could ment through simple movements and actions. By contrast, then use the data to control evolving and adaptive playlists NeuroRacer is designed for healthy people between the ages that are designed to prolong positive reactions while mini- of 60 and 79 and aims to improve memory, focus and atten- mizing negative responses. Over time, the app would create tion [23]. Game developments such as these are not isolated; an increasingly personalized profile to govern the playback Simon McCallum and Costas Boletsis’s recent literature re- probabilities of audio assets. Ideally, music therapists, and/or view of dementia-related games speaks of “a proliferation of family members would first input audio preferences or other 22 Mitchell, Dementia, Music and Biometric Gaming relevant data to inform the first playlist selections—but this hierarchically according to the patient’s level of impairment. would not be an absolute requirement for an adaptive system, For example, the therapist or application could give greater since it could customize initial randomized playlists on the precedence to biometric data to accommodate significant basis of biometric data alone. levels of mental or physical impairment. Developers might extend such an approach to incorporate the use of visual stimuli, ranging from familiar and person- T he Biometric Data Challenge ally significant images to more general ones or to generated Despite the potential of such systems, the numerous chal- media, both ideally linked to corresponding audio assets. lenges of interpreting and implementing biometric data They could incorporate eye-tracking technology as a supple- within game play cannot be overstated [28]. How, for ex- mentary indicator of preference, perhaps through the addi- ample, would an industry geared toward entertainment gain tion of smart glasses [27]. sufficient understanding of the complexities of physiological and psychophysiological responses to create systems that ac- Active Systems curately interpret biometric data and implement meaningful Developers could create active systems for less-impaired us- changes via appropriate real-time feedback and interaction? ers. For example, music therapy sessions often place great em- Challenges such as these are further compounded by the fact phasis on improvisation and the creation of music or sound that scientific studies examining physiological and psycho- through interaction with the patient or client. Active gaming physiological responses to various stimuli can yield contra- systems could allow similar opportunities for audio creation dictory results. Nor are test subject responses universal—one within responsive and interactive gaming environments. shoe does not fit all. When developers seek to create bio- Developers could create gaming systems for supplementary metric games for those with specific health conditions or use by music therapists in therapy sessions; alternatively, diseases, such challenges are amplified still further: Ethical stand-alone applications might capture some of the ben- considerations take on new significance, and research, design efits of music therapy without the presence of a therapist. and development must be adapted to the needs of those with In either scenario, the application might use biometric physical or psychological impairments. data to inform the therapist or the game engine of the play- Nevertheless, if such developments were successful, bio- er’s physiological response to stimuli. Negative physiologi- metric sensors and data might offer tangible and measurable cal responses might then be countered through appropriate ways to detect an individual’s response to aural and visual therapeutic changes in the musical stimuli or game environ- stimuli in the absence of other indicators, and these systems ment. Similarly, positive physiological responses could be could provide caregivers and therapists with custom interac- reinforced. The application or therapist could also interpret tive treatments through the use of music and images—even biometric data as an indicator of audio preference or even in the final stages of disease. Such targeted treatments, or map data to specific audio parameters such as pitch, volume, “gaming entertainments,” could also offer transferable health tempo, timbre, texture, harmony and so on, allowing physi- benefits to the general population, piggy-backing on the de- ological changes to shape musical outcomes within a game velopment of biometric technologies designed for commer- environment based on music therapy principles. cial gaming applications. Additional inputs, such as motion sensors, built-in micro- phones or standard game controllers, could provide more Conu cl sion opportunities for active and conscious interaction or im- We conclude where we began: with the remarkable transfor- provisation, particularly if they are reinforced by the game’s mation of Henry, a man brought vividly to life through his visual environment through audiovisual mapping. For ex- love of music, momentarily freed in mind and enlivened in ample, an application could link pitch tracking to position body. Imagine if we could extend such experiences by add- coordinates, or speed of motion to tempo. Such approaches ing unobtrusive biometric devices that measure responses would allow the reciprocal manipulation of sound and image to inform playlist preferences or by delivering customized, and generate a continuous feedback loop in which changing “on-tap” music therapy treatments in response to changing audiovisual stimuli could generate new biometric data, trig- needs. Achieving these goals depends upon our political will, gering further audiovisual changes in the game environment research funding and interdisciplinary collaboration, and and generating new stimuli in turn. some of these necessary pieces are now falling into place. In active systems that combine various types of sensors, The challenges are significant for those at the coal face of the influence of particular sensors’ inputs might be weighted such developments, but so, too, are the potential rewards. References and Notes 4 For introductory overviews on music and health, see Mitchell, Dementia, Music and Biometric Gaming 23 6 For further information, see 13 Michelle Wall and Anita Duffy, “The Effects of Music Therapy for 26 Haptic: relating to the sense of touch. Current developments in hap- Older People with Dementia,” British Journal of Nursing 19, No. 2, tic technology include products such as touch screens, gaming vests 108–113 (2010); Raglio et al. [12]. and gloves, all designed to give tactility to game play. 14 Robert A. Bruer, Edward Spitznagel and C. Robert Cloninger, “The Temporal Limits of Cognitive Change from Music Therapy in Eld- 27 See 16 Parasympathetic system: a part of the autonomic nervous system. Helen R. Mitchell currently lectures in music at the Uni- Sometimes referred to as the “rest and digest” system. versity of Hull and has a background in performance as pro- 17 Kaoru Okada et al., “Effects of Music Therapy on Autonomic Ner- fessor of flute and saxophone at the Royal Marines School of vous System Activity, Incidence of Heart Failure Events, and Plasma Cytokine and Catecholamine Levels in Elderly Patients with Cere- Music. Her research specialty is sound and music for games brovascular Disease and Dementia,” International Heart Journal 50, and film, and her teaching currently centers on film music, No. 1, 95–110 (2009). audiovisual composition, performance and sound design. 24 Mitchell, Dementia, Music and Biometric Gaming ABSTRACT tive technologies for transcending or transforming disabling the disability to implementing by posed enabling limitations techniques the and from assis- focus the shifts perspective music-making, as the disabling factor. Thus,the social model musical interfaces, as well as noninclusive attitudessocial to cial model of disability perceives the exclusionary designs of so- the contrast, In themselves. musicians prospective the medical The model [1]. sees the model disabling factor social as a the limitation and within model medical the models: theoretical predominant two through viewed be can ties Thebarriers to music-making faced bypeople with disabili- tutors for inclusive music workshops. lead becoming and process training the completing before by a period spent shadowing experienced access music tutors come a DMNI access music tutor. Our training was followed be- to musicians Belfast-based other 10 alongside trained I observation. participant on based was study ethnographic tions operating in Northern Ireland. The methodology of my organiza-community arts recognized andestablished most the of one is DMNI 1992, since operation In [2]. interfaces digital through participation musical to barriers disabling itythatenabledisabilities existstowith peopleovercometo MusicDrake the ProjectNorthern Ireland char-(DMNI),a b Ireland onmakingmusic-makingmoreinclusive. author discusseshisresearchwiththeDrakeMusicProjectNorthern the easily accessibleforuseininclusivemusic-making.Inthisarticle, low-cost DIYcomponentshavemadecustomizedmusicaltools making. Advancesinpersonalized,opensourcetechnologiesand increativemusic- enable peoplewithdisabilitiestoparticipate canbedesignedto Digital musicalinstrumentsandinterfaces The MeaningsinMaking ©2015 ISAST for audio, video and other supplementary filesassociatedwiththisissueofLMJ. for audio,videoandothersupplementary c h a m u l e s oratively. collab- andcreatively sound and musicexplore to together professionalanddisabilities with peoplemusicians bringto classes our in Weaspire interfaces. DIY-accessible musical dential songwriting weekends and “hackdays” to create new composition workshops. Other activities have included resi- songwriting and performance sessions to small and focused group large from range workshops The Ireland. Northern around and in centers day at or 1) (Fig. studios DMNI two of one at place take Workshopsdisability. and technology cerebral palsy who have some degree of upper limb motor limb upper of degree some have who palsy cerebral oped an inclusive DMI for three musicians with quadriplegic Ph.D. researcher at the University of Ulster, he a has co-devel- as 2011, Since DMNI. for researcher a and practitioner a strument designer who has worked for over 15 years as both widely accessible tools for music and sound creation. for individual musicians or user groups or aimed at providing inclusive musical tools aimed at overcoming specificbarriers createmusicianscustomvein,can similar a Inpression [4]. ex- artistic of form a as makers and itself musicians to available design instrument made have audio, for languages programming and (DMI) instruments musical digital lers, electronic instruments and tools, particularly MIDI control- andmodification phenomena;are new rather, adventthe of extensioninstrumentthat suggest not do I performance.of software or adapt hardware in ways specific to eachconfigure instance or works individual for instruments or patches consider of broadest abilities. the user spectrum Inclusive design emphasizes the creation of technologies that abilities ofthese broadand techniques [3]. especially can be spread the musicians, disabled Among practice. and cesses pro- work their shape that tools the of customizations and Mu ve techniquesaccordingly, and,specific abilitiesdevelop verse di- have u medium any in work artistic creating Individuals I n The activities of DMNI exist at the intersection of intersection music, of the exist at DMNI of activities The BrendanMcCloskey anisinclusive [5] musical in- digital tools, new create potentially can musicians Electronic c l s i LEONARDO MUSICJOURNAL, V s i c : P r act i c e s a n d Tool d ol. 25,pp. 25–29,2015 s 25 Fig. 1. Workstation setup at the Belfast DMNI studio, 18 December 2014. (Photo © Koichi Samuels) Fig. 2. inGrid hardware and software interface, 21 November 2014. inGrid was collaboratively designed to accommodate the unique abilities of three specific users who face physical barriers to their participation in music-making. (Photo © Brendan McCloskey) capability. This collaboratively designed device is called in- then qualitatively assessed by the group. The feedback from Grid [6] (Fig. 2). McCloskey built inGrid from a matrix of 16 these assessment stages informed technical revisions. The fi- DIY force-sensing resistors (FSR), which control a physical nal design emerged through an extended circular process of modeling synthesis engine built in Max/MSP [7]. collaborative testing, dialogue and prototype revision. The collaborative methodology of inGrid’s creation em- The outcome of this process was a DMI suited to the three phasized participatory design and customized methods collaborating musicians’ specific requirements. Instead of in the assessment of need and capability among the small keys or buttons, inGrid features ports into which one can group of physically disabled digital musicians. Interviews “plug” a finger. This feature removes a barrier for a player and discussions with the three collaborating musicians were who finds discrete hand movements and finger control chal- followed by several stages of prototyping; each prototype was lenging by enabling steady, fixed placement of fingers into the 26 Samuels, The Meanings in Making ports. Through this interaction paradigm, inGrid enables in- customization of MIDI controllers; hardware hacking and dependent, real-time expressive control for shaping a sound’s DIY/maker cultures in experimental music; and music and loudness, timbre, vibrato and resonance through a simple digital media programming languages (such as Max/MSP switch-targeting gesture. and Supercollider [9]). A recently published study on acces- sible design titled Enabling Technology [10] finds that open Me anings in Making source hardware (such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi) and In electronic music practices, as with more traditional mu- “curated ecosystems” (such as iOS and Android) also afford sic forms, the “tools of the trade” hold individual and so- much versatility and customization useful to people with dis- cial meanings inscribed in their making and performed in abilities. In designs that aspire toward inclusion, systems in their usage. The design and making of inGrid exposed de- which the interface between musician and sound generator sign limitations in conventional mainstream controllers and can be adapted or easily customized offer significant benefits DMIs, explored solutions to overcoming disabling barriers to over traditional, unmodifiable instruments [11]. music-making and challenged common assumptions of the In March 2015 I curated a 3-day collaboration between abilities of musicians with disabilities—in this case, of three DMNI and the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen’s Uni- digital musicians with quadriplegic cerebral palsy. versity Belfast, that brought together five DMNI musicians, Matt Ratto [8] discusses how “making” can supplement student musicians from around the U.K., engineers and in- and extend critical reflection on the relationship between teraction designers [12]. Over the 3 days, the participants digital technology and society. He defines his research ex- worked collaboratively in teams to design and build proto- periments as “critical making”: a mode of materially produc- types of Arduino-accessible musical interfaces [13] (Fig. 3). tive engagement intended to bridge the gap between physical On the final day they performed improvised music together. and conceptual exploration. Practices of creating and using The students discussed the specifications with the DMNI inclusive DMIs can likewise be seen to deconstruct conven- musicians so that each musician had an interfacing solution tional understandings of disability, as well as help enable tailor-made to his or her individual requirements. participation of those who face barriers in making music. In one team, Ruben, a young man who had sustained a brain injury that weakened his motor skills, related to his “p O enness” student designer that he enjoys using the joystick UI on The intrinsically modifiable and adaptable nature of certain his electric wheelchair because it allows him to use two fingers contemporary music technologies makes them particularly on his left hand for discrete control. Based on these discus- useful in inclusive music settings. I use the term “open mu- sions, the student designer implemented a similar interface sic technology” to encompass practices surrounding the with a T-bar shaped joystick (Fig. 4): A touch sensor on the Fig. 3. Ray, a longtime DMNI musician, trying out a prototype interface built specifically for his use by student DMI designers at a 3-day hacking event held at the Sonics Arts Research Centre, Queen’s University Belfast, 27 March 2015. (Photo © Edward Butt) Samuels, The Meanings in Making 27 an iPad synthesizer or sampler app, or connecting an accessible music technology device such as the Sound- beam [16] to remove the necessity of a tangible interface to hold or touch. Sometimes much simpler solutions are appropriate. For example, to en- able live percussion play, a drumstick can be adapted by fixing an object with a larger surface area to the end, mak- ing it require less physical force from the musician to strike the drum. These kinds of solutions require creativity, improvisation and flexibility from both the access music tutor and the musi- cian, as well as a space to experiment with improvisations of enabling tech- niques, performances of music and performances of ability. It is important to note that, in most cases, it is the trained access music tutor who implements the hack or adapts a tool for the musician’s use. Thus, an important question to ask when considering openness is: open to whom? Whether for inclusive music or any other purpose, a precondition for the person hacking or adapting a tool is a certain level of expertise. Thus, a universally “open” technology (one that is easily adapted, modified or hacked) is hard to conceive; there will always be the requirement of a cer- tain level of knowledge and therefore Fig. 4. Ruben and his joystick Arduino interface, 27 March 2015. The interaction mode was exclusions. designed to be similar to his assisted control wheelchair system. (Photo © Cathryn Hogg) Te chnology and Inclusion Despite limitations to the universality top of the bar turns on the sound generator, the joystick’s of open technology, the potential of open music technolo- movement along its x-axis controls pitch, and its movement gies for customizations and tailored specifications to suit an along its y-axis controls the length the note is played. individual’s specific abilities is undeniable. Whether they Open music technology sensor interfaces can be appropri- come from within universities or “third sector” (nonprofit ately matched to overcome an individual musician’s specific or volunteer) initiatives, organizations like DMNI are grow- barriers to access and participation. Furthermore, as Jewell ing in number, as is their reach and impact for musicians with and Atkin [14] note, the availability of open source design disabilities in the U.K. can eliminate the need for a manufacturer, investors or One of the most high-profile examples of musicians us- both, since designs in the public domain can be used and ing inclusive adaptation is the British Paraorchestra [17], the manufactured by anyone. From my fieldwork experience world’s first professional ensemble of disabled traditional with DMNI, I have come to the realization that adaptations and electronic musicians. Jewel and Atkin [18] assert that or customizations of existing mainstream and accessible the Paraorchestra provides a fertile environment for its mem- technologies can also lead to effective interfacing solutions. bers to exchange information about enabling music technol- When a workshop participant wants to use a DMI or tool ogy and to collaborate in the creation of new instruments. with an interface he or she finds challenging, the interface Through my research with DMNI I have learned not to focus can often be temporarily adapted on the fly with additional solely on the abstract concern that many open technologies controllers rather than permanently hacked or modified. are not universally open, but instead, as Jewell and Atkin An example of this kind of temporary adaptation is using a emphasize, to extend the manner of collaboration and the MIDI keyboard and iRig MIDI interface [15] to input into sharing of information exemplified by the Paraorchestra in 28 Samuels, The Meanings in Making order to understand and promote useful devices and soft- tioning who has access and assessing how intelligible and ware, and to design better musical interactions for the benefit transparent work processes are to users and audiences. These of the musicians using them. are important considerations, but are perhaps most valuably posed within the context of academic research. To the work- Conu cl sion shop participants and the access music tutors of DMNI, con- Openness, transparency and intelligibility are all funda cerns with the politics of making digital music technologies mental themes when thinking about electronic music. In and their practices of use take a backseat when compared to inclusive music practices, these themes are particularly rel- the primary purpose and object of the workshops: the cre- evant for discussion and questioning. At the same time, it ation of the tools and environment to enable participants is vital not to lose the essential ethos of inclusion itself. As to collaborate in composing and performing music, and to an academic researcher, electronic musician and hardware facilitate the process of overcoming disabling barriers and enthusiast, I am aware that my own personal concerns come enabling creativity. to bear when analyzing a device’s level of openness, ques- References and Notes 12 See Samuels, The Meanings in Making 29 30 ABSTRACT led me to a narrow and specific pedagogy and politics of sonic art. politics and pedagogy specific and narrow a to me led has agency as art-making of definition My impact. highest about insight offer a rationale for provideto fails be, mayit importantas goods), educational other (or experiences art of maldistribution the rectify to However,effort choice.an political a make we perspective, uities, have few art programs in their schools), then, from one cause of structural economic and resultant educational ineq- be- who, studentsexample, (for them get rarely who those aredisenfranchised) able to exercise choice and agency. who do not currently have much powersocial (children, the those which in culture) (politics, arenas wider for ground empowerment, art-making might also function as a training domains. Beyond the intrinsic value of such an experience of virtual of state the determine and shape rule, to power the power—exercise can life,domains of other in power social then say that art is a place where anyone, irrespective of their is choices making of correlate experiential and affective The choices. make people which in arena an is creation Artistic Experimental MusicwithYoung Novices L trends towardSTEMeducation. not foreseen”—thatischaracteristicofCageanmusicresonateswith outcomeofwhichis shows howtheopen-endedsonicinquiry—“the exercise authorshipandagencywithmusiccomposition.Finally, he hierarchical andempoweringpedagogythroughwhichanyonecan and reproductionofextantworks.Instead,hesuggestsananti- outside thetraditionalframeworkofinstrumentalskill-development discusses thepoliticalimpetusandimplicationsforteachingmusic developed forworkshopswithuntrainedmusicalnovices.He The authordescribesanexperimentalmusic-basedpedagogy EONARDO MUSICJOURNAL,Vol. 25,pp.30–33, 2015 files associatedwiththisissueofLMJ. foraudio,videoandothersupplementary See n k l e the onesthe we assent to as agroup. are by play we rules only The wish. they as governto theirs is musicof domain virtual the lives, their domainsin other in a kind of musical politics of self-determination. As in few resulta overstudents which ownershipfeel andauthorship, processA andofchoice2). agency performance (Fig. yields and practice in peers their conduct eventually and played be will music the which with instruments the design help 1), (Fig. composeto notation which ownsystems with their child-composer and the group. To this end, students develop producedas everything andframe possible as choices many as make to students encourage I novices, to sound and music teach I when contrast, By conductors. and composers adult to rather butstudents au-to notthorship and choice-making assigns instruction music school However,do. they workmost the authorsof the plainly are students instruction, writing creative du or art visual early In P fields. the as knownarewidelywhat to experimentalism of agency,sourced soundmaterials locally andconnection the my practice of experimental music pedagogy: compositional three interlinked threads of political reasoning that underlie discuss I Here, music. and sound with interact we how of as an urgent critique and challenge to predominating norms invented instruments and simple electronics. I see this work formance of graphic scores, and others, building and playing on guiding students in free improvisation, notation and per- situations to which they had access. focused Some curricula once-weekly workshops were the only formal music-learning tain literacy in Western Art Music. at- For to U.S.many, the in my children short-term, higher-income many allow that lessons) private ensembles, (school resources the lack who students encountered typically I County, Diego San of eas ar- high-poverty in centers community at youth of groups with Working defined. broadly very music, experimental of field inspiration the fromeducationworkshops take that r Since 2010, I have designed and led alternative music music alternative led and designed have I 2010, Since o c i n g , , n o t R e pr o du c i n g belonging the to ©2015 ISAST STEM vantage over more conventional music training: Students do not need to be- come literate in Western Art Music’s no- tation before they can author a musical instruction that their peers can execute. Thus, in my workshops, everyone com- poses and everyone helps in the realiza- tion of one another’s scores in a beautiful model of individualism balanced with cooperation. Sounds like Home Doing experimental music with nov- ices almost by definition requires that we “abandon normal instruments” [5]. A major stumbling block on the way to creative music-making is the simple technical obstacle of ability to make and control sounds on “normal” instru- ments. Working with alternative sound sources such as everyday objects and en- Fig. 1. A child’s graphically notated original composition, 2012. vironmental sound offers at once a prac- (Photo © Universal Language Orchestra) tical workaround and a deep political critique. When funding is not available for instruments or for adequate continu- Most music training begins with the assumption that nov- ity to help students ascend a ladder toward technical compe- ices must spend a long time reproducing an extant tradition tence (as was often the case for my programs), it is certainly before they are adequately prepared to offer their own well- expedient to explore soundmaking with whatever is at hand. formed statement in that tradition. The most meaningful cre- But it also liberates us from the assumption that novices are ative output in the Western Art Music tradition—as in most merely those who have not yet attained credentialing skills of the world’s art musics—is often thought to come only from that determine their value (call it “musicianship”) as music- the highly trained. For me, experimental music (like many makers. All musical choices or sound-oriented behavior can popular musics) offers a counterweight to this formulation of be a source of beauty and value, especially if we remove the creativity and determination of who can exercise it and when. idea of instruments having deeply ingrained “correct” uses I locate my pedagogy in an experimental music lineage but and sounds. Who is to say that an 8-year-old cannot discover not because I aim to expose students to its historical great- the optimal way to play a bicycle or will not document some ness; instead, I rely on experimentalism because I believe its beautiful, unnoticed sound of the swing set? strategies provide students with an immediate springboard Moreover, when they view the whole sounding world as to their own musical agency. a resource that can be manipulated and composed with, Experimental music offers promising politics and peda- students can author something that captures an organic gogy because it offers techniques (and permission!) that connection between themselves and their world. Instead of enable anyone, of any background, to compose. Although striving to “elevate” students toward the ratified materials this music is strongly linked to the academy, experimental and aesthetics (a project plainly bound up with colonial and composers teaching in universities ironically have been pro- politicized value hierarchies), I help my students articulate ponents of a kind of musical deschooling [1]. The influential themselves in relation to the here-and-now. Emphasizing the experimental composition course John Cage taught at the music in our everyday surroundings, chaotic or plain as it New School (1956–1960) proposed that one need not be a may seem at first, helps students soften their assumptions musician to compose musical scores; it was “open to those about how music ought to sound and, ultimately, to view with or without previous training” [2]. their own sound explorations as valuable, “real” music. The I had the privilege to study with two of the major profes- insight that comfort and fluency with the sounds of home sor/composers of the post-Cagean generation: Alvin Lucier could undergird the emergence of a compositional voice is a [3] and Pauline Oliveros [4]. Both taught novice-oriented cornerstone of Pauline Oliveros’s teaching as I experienced university music courses that, like Cage’s New School class, it: Her introductory course asks students to make a sound asked students, regardless of musical background, to com- recording of their home environment and construct their pose and realize unconventional scores. Because any system first compositions from this sound material. of notation can be employed to specify any kind of action, With recent advances in the image processing and video the logic of experimental composition has an obvious ad- editing capabilities of our devices, millions of social media Tinkle, Experimental Music with Young Novices 31 users now creatively document their visual worlds and re- encourage divergence, creativity and imagination, certainly shape them into digital canvases. While perhaps no com- above settings of obeisant recitation of someone else’s music. parable folk art of digital phonography has yet saturated There is an obvious resonance between my creativity- our techno-culture to the same degree, I envision a future centered approach and the demands of the postindustrial in which creative fluency with the sounds of our environ- knowledge economy. If symphonies and concert bands were ments will be fundamental to what we think of as core mu- the musical mirror to an industrial economy in which cog- sicianship. Colonialist logic suggests that the finest art and like workers were subsumed to rigid hierarchies, lockstep culture is cultivated in and for the halls of power. What if, coordination and unquestioned commands (e.g. complex, like locavore chefs, we instead were to prioritize and com- multipart musical arrangements with little improvisation mit to working with what immediately surrounds us and is mirroring Fordian manufacturing methods), the postmod- directly at hand? ern knowledge worker is much more like an experimental composer: expected to be a “content producer”—an autono- Puf f ing STEAM: mous “creative” whose ideas are valued in proportion to their Experimentalism as Sound Inquiry disruptive newness. I mention this not to celebrate recent What is the place of arts education? What do we want art to economic transformations but rather to point out the lin- do and be for people? Although I believe that art-making gering bad fit between the means of most mainstream mu- should be promulgated and taught because it is fundamen- sic education (reproduction-focused, hierarchical) and our tal to what makes us human, we seem to be living in an era desired, “postindustrial” socioeconomic goals (innovation- where data-driven, extrinsic justifications of art trump such focused, less hierarchical). intrinsic ones. In one increasingly influential justification, Given the current climate, an even plainer argument for drawing on an enormous corpus of research “proving” art’s post-Cagean techniques in the music classroom is to point cognitive, social and economic impacts, proponents sand- out the obvious mutualism of aesthetically unconstrained wich an “A” into STEM (science, technology, engineering and sound experimentation and STEM-based inquiry. Much math) fields thought to be so crucial to the competitiveness of experimental music was “STEAM” avant la lettre: Tudor the American workforce. Those who would place the arts in [6], Oliveros and the Sonic Arts Union [7] represent a still- “STEAM” suggest that to be competitive we need to innovate thriving lineage of tinkerers at the artistic and technological and invent, not merely calculate and engineer. If we are going vanguard. Yet this need not necessarily represent expensive to “save” arts education by declaring it as a means to such an or high technology: I start with the investigation of sounds end, we must prioritize the musical experiences that most that can be wrung from ordinary objects. For a child, an ex- Fig. 2. A child uses a graphic score composed by a fellow student to conduct an orchestra of students playing homemade instruments, 2012. (Photo © Universal Language Orchestra) 32 Tinkle, Experimental Music with Young Novices periment with a contact microphone is a springboard both which is not foreseen”—offers both a methodological and to improvisation and a science experiment: How do mate- political challenge to traditional music teaching [8]. Rather rial, mass and means of excitation impact the sounds things than relying so exclusively on externally imposed norms and make? Rather than prescribing a right way to make sounds, traditions to determine and delimit each step up a child’s my classroom is a space for open-ended inquiry, an investiga- ladder to musicianship, what if instead music education was tion of cause and sounding effect. self-education in which students were, like citizen-scientists, An experimental attitude toward music—embodied in set loose to probe and document the sounding world? the sort of actions, as Cage famously said, “the outcome of Acknowledgments Oblique Strategies: Over 100 worthwhile dilemmas, discussed in Greg- ory Taylor, “The Oblique Strategies”: Tinkle, Experimental Music with Young Novices 33 34 ABSTRACT global reach inspires emerging musicians and sound artists sound musiciansandinspiresemerging reach global Internet’sThe information. acquired newly engage internalize and actively millennials how This [3]. illustrates ways phenomenon new in it to contribute and work absorb creative users which in process P multifaceted a is it rather, v passive; longer no is content source open of Consumption T A throughparts asynchronous collaboration [2]. gap between classically trained musicians and their counter- access as serves a vital compositional device and bridges the outfitted Internetwith studio project modern The [1]. tools dividenovice between and professional application of those are robust, configurable and user-driven,thus narrowingthe dio workstations used in music production and composition au- digital as such platforms Affordable open-source tions. composi- remix and soundscapes arrangements, musical new conceiving digital while tools affordable accessible employ of technology era an in steeped Millennials terial. ma- source and existing manipulate to composers artists sound emerging inspiring content, new of transfer open and free the from benefits practice compositional Modern CESS A Sound Exchange L musical practice. influence oflegalfileexchangeandremixingineducational andconsidersthepositive sound collagesinanopenaccessformat of thesereusedsounds.Theauthordiscussestheuseremixed for otherstudentstoreuse.Newcreativeworkconsistsentirely original sounds,andthenuploadthemtoaseparateclassdrive proposed musiccompositioncoursemustcaptureandgenerate modeled aftertrack-orsong-remixingwebsites.Studentsinanewly expression sound andspacethatencouragescollectiveartistic technologyfacilitatesanimmediatedocumentationof Affordable EONARDO MUSICJOURNAL,Vol. 25,pp.34–36, 2015 files associatedwiththisissueofLMJ. foraudio,videoandothersupplementary See i b Reframing MusicCompositionEducationalPractice W i D a i li rt a t i y n c i p at e l o r y Cul a l t u z r e e r position with computer networks and live performance [12]. much inspiration from historical trends linking music com- draw curricula in ethos technological and music shared a torise new cultural trends [9–11]. Recent moves to establish give and types all of teachers music rejuvenate classroom networking andremixing the social tools, e-learningin dia, me- new includinghow explores research education music topical knowledge, and imagination on effect technology’s Considering [8]. perspectives multiple from pedagogy and research education music inspires technology the how in learning—particularly student of scope the improve also but creative practice enhance only not software productionmusic in improvements major Div the ng decade, past the Over P a I content and encourages its reuse in new and creative ways [7]. hybrid musical event in which each contributes original sonic ideals of many young musicians who actively participate in a the reflects portal Internet’s the global through authorship ers value innovation without monopolization. Collaborative develop- content scenario, this In [6]. people like-minded managementbuildingcommunitiesand while ofstructures plines without the rigorous constraints of corporate business of Internet-based virtual collaborators innovates across disci- trend in product development and design. Thegrowing body ing their work without concern for profitillustrate agrowing tivated by commercial gain [5]. Media producers freely offer- producers involved in peer collaboration are not always mo- tools at arm’s reach. preferred their with processcreative individualized an into delve phenomenon; millennials technological this toadjust not need artists sound and music Emerging [4]. patterns creative their transform that tools software incorporating process, compositional global a of themselves avail culture interests. creative personal their thatserve ideas examine critically to n n Copyright law overlooks the fact that millennial content millennial that fact the overlooks law Copyright Millennials born into an open access, technology-saturated s d i E r d i u c at i on e rs i t y in Mu in s i c Co m p o s i t i ©2015 ISAST on on Thc e c Mixter Model ance, tempo shifts and combining analog equipment with Cheliotis and Yew’s [13] quantitative study of the track remix- their workflow. Initial compositions focus primarily on au- ing website ccMixter (ccMixter.org) illustrates the communal dio content with guided instruction. The instructor facilitates experience remixing inspires, where a desire for free expres- classroom discussions, production-specific approaches, and sion is deeply connected to a sense of collaborative belonging compilation and management of the database and supple- and streamlined interface design. The site’s introduction of ments each class with listening examples from sound artists ccHost, a licensing management tool, traces reused content and composers drawn from popular, experimental, commer- by ccMixter users, linking all versions of derivative works cial and electronic multimedia styles. while administering a Creative Commons license for newly The students focus their arrangements on achieving a ba- uploaded content [14–16]. This transparent attribution policy sic structure with their chosen sounds. Ultimately, students facilitates a simple transfer of creative information and estab- must conceptualize a cohesive form for their compositions lishes a communal link among users that extends far beyond and find thematic elements and motivic devices. Trans- commercial interests, instead encouraging a deep sense of forming abstract sounds into a musical framework requires active musical participation [17]. ccMixter’s participatory patience, planning and experimentation. Ambient sounds model engages its user base to credit authors of source ma- function well in a harmonic context, and metallic sounds terial used in new compositions [18]. inspire rhythmic and melodic development. Additionally, Recent qualitative studies by Diakopoulos et al. [19] sug- students workshop their production approaches with the gest author willingness to provide original content for oth- original sound authors. ers to use is indicative of the collaborative value structure In addition to the growing database, students interact with inherent in the remixing community. Composers voluntarily one another in Blackboard discussion forums. Threaded dis- exchanging original music and sonic material participate in a cussions allow each student to describe their original sounds deep exchange of cultural ideas, collaborative narrative struc- in detail and receive peer feedback on compositions-in- tures and expression [20]. progress. Moreover, these threaded discussions receive little instructor moderation—their aim is to transform the online E ducATional Application of File Exchange learning environment into a free, collaborative exchange of Collaborative file exchange guides much of the pedagogical musical ideas [21]. framework and curricular design in Digital Synthesis and This dialog serves a useful purpose in the remixing plat- Remixing, a planned second-year course in the Bachelor of form, as it gives the new composer an understanding of the Music degree in Composition and New Media, an interdis- original author’s intent in recording the sound. The com- ciplinary program now designed and pending final approval, poser’s intent should be to create an original narrative from at the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UML). source materials they did not originally conceive. Ultimately Enrolled students record a range of sounds with various the new author must (1) conceptualize his or her existing lengths, timbral characteristics and pitches from diverse en- sound catalog, (2) become intimately familiar with each vironments. Students use simple portable recorders to cap- sound’s characteristics and (3) balance creative production ture their sound catalogs, taking care to ensure proper gain techniques with critical thinking to arrange the existing staging when using the portable recorder’s internal micro- sounds in a new composite work. phone. Students import their recordings to a digital audio Collaborative music creation happens through this inte- workstation for editing. Students then trim the recordings grated communication during lab time. Just as traditional for length, but the sounds receive no further processing or composers play their piano sketches during a seminar post-production. At this point students upload their edited course, remix composers similarly discuss, revise and edit audio files to a composite drive with a simple description of their material collaboratively and in real time. Peer feedback the sound and its major characteristics. is important and encouraged in this scenario and requires After reviewing the existing database, students each each student to see his or her piece from a variety of visual, choose assorted sounds recorded by their classmates to edit, musical and sonic perspectives. The aim of this overall com- manipulate and remix to create a new original piece. Students municative structure is to nurture a discovery-based musical cannot include any of their own recordings in the remix com- composition process both in class and online that encourages position and must only use sounds from other classmates. and respects each student’s artistic inclinations [22]. This limitation challenges the students to build a compelling artistic narrative with sonic content with which they are not Conu cl sion intimately familiar. Tailoring specific restriction guidelines Future research and curricular development must imple- based on enrollment is advisable for faculty considering ment course-learning outcomes that embrace collaborative similar assignments. aesthetics in sound and music composition through an open Students are free to arrange the sounds as they see fit. They access format. Although this premise is not overtly political, alter the sounds through creative synthesis and production I argue that file exchange can benefit the student composer techniques in the digital audio workstations. These tech- through the implementation of carefully structured learn- niques include equalization, filtering, use of delay-based ing activities and defined parameters in an educational con- effects and stutters, pitch shifting, reverberation and ambi- text. These parameters mirror existing paradigms that the Walzer, Sound Exchange 35 remixing community already embraces. Logistical and tech- tic pathway will engage students to conceptualize preexisting nological frameworks must prudently achieve compliance content for commercial and abstract musical compositions with institutional missions. through classroom activities, relevant integration of online As the new Digital Synthesis and Remixing syllabus and learning tools and applied instruction. The expected result final course sequence, both works in progress, materialize of these efforts is a dynamic and inspired musical pathway in the next year, the proposed Bachelor of Music degree in that will direct students toward autonomous cultivation of Composition and New Media anticipates global trends in their individual artistic style, both individualized and deeply collaborative musical practice. A holistic and reflective artis- inspired by their interaction with their cohorts. References and Notes work Computer Music,” Leonardo Music Journal 8 (1998) pp. 39–44: 36 Walzer, Sound Exchange ABSTRACT nature, the glitch is inevitable yet unexpected, tiny yet dis- yet tiny unexpected, yet inevitable is glitch the nature, in Paradoxical agency. of forms distributed and emergent for allow that systemsunstable createmusicians and artists glitch creation, of sites as failure and aberration Claiming ing or amplifying the failure of technologies and systems [2]. has called the “cracking” of media, which involves encourag- Kelly Caleb what ofprocess a in engagematerial a as glitch and media arts since the early 1990s. Artists working with the sound experimental in inquiry of object an and nipulation noise into a system—has become a material for aesthetic ma- conceptthe of aglitch—a minor or malfunction error. to akin parasite is the figure of the sense, deviations.this In unexpected create to potential the has it state, of changes minuscule about Bringing originates. being all which from chaos or noise background the infinite: the sense, physical meta- a in and,interference both as understood is parasite differentiation, disruption, distribution and novelty The [1]. accounts for“noise”that translatesfigure as “static”)ora is and English in reflected not is that third sycophant—anda nitions—the biological parasite and its social equivalent, the meanings in French, two corresponding to the English defi- three has that term (a parasite the Serres, MichelFor tions. Itkilling. is a minor figurewith paradoxically large implica- without weakens and giving without takes that organism micro- a host, unsuspecting an on snacking guest wanted un- an is transgression: It evokes parasite the of figure The knowledge production. modesof framework fortheorizingminoritarianpoliticsandalternative that theglitch,akeyconceitofexperimentalmusic,isproductive malfunction andfailureareamplifiedwithinsystems.Theauthorargues dealswithglitchandexaminestheresultwhenerror,failure, thisarticle withnotionsof Concerned tothetextualcanonofsonicart. queer theory with queertheory, to“queer”thefieldofsoundstudies,andopenup isanattempttobringsoundstudiesdiscoursesintodialogue This article Glitch/Failure ©2015 ISAST files associatedwiththis issueofLMJ. foraudio,videoandothersupplementary See r e r o k o s mative systems. nor- into concepts noisy introducing by category fixed and queer theory glitches the understanding of identity as a stableperformances, reiterated and rehearsed of result the as tity and the production of static conceptions of speech gender authoritative and iden- of mode a as performativity Con- sidering [5]. categories performative and multiplicitous are sexuality turn, in and,gender thatargues JudithButler ing, change’of process continual a in are content and meaning whose subject the thereby suggests the history of sexuality to be “the history of andrelations social of product a as “sexualityconsiders ies stud- queer particular, in sexuality of readings essentialist ing of identities, orientations and practices. Arguing against scholarly work that argues for a nonessentialist understand- on builds studies, feminist and studies (LGBT) transsexual n gay,lesbian,to lineage directand a bisexual with theory cal theory,Queer which emerged in the 1990s as a field of criti- Quee the fields of sound studies, queer theory and affect theory. affect and theory queer studies, sound of fields the normative modes of existence, I construct an affinity among to resistance of site a as failure reclaimed has theory queer ing on how sonic art uses failure as anda methodology how ductive political possibilities of failure and negativity.pro- Focus- the articulate which theory, critical and theory queer alongside works glitch sonic examining involvestreatment “queer”Suchpractices. a readingarts sonic of experimental [3], here I treat the glitch in conceptual terms and propose a music of genre a and practice artistic an both as glitch on andfunction error. media technologies and the productivity of aberration, mal- Foregrounding failure, such practices highlight the limits of forth). so and samplersphonographs,players, (CD devices production (including CDs and vinyl records) and playback re- music of technologies the deconstruct Paik June Nam Yasunao Tone as andproto-glitch Marclay Christian suchasartists and such artists glitch Seminal conceptually. and literally both noise amplifies that form art an is It ruptive. While much academic work has already been produced produced been already has work academic much While r i g Sound S Sound LEONARDO MUSICJOURNAL, V ” [4]. Taking up this constructivist read- constructivist Taking this up[4]. t u die s , Gli t c h in ol. 25,pp. 37–40, 2015 g I d en t i t y 37 One such concept is queer theory’s focus on failure and mission, and the a priori judgment of the parasite as degener- negativity as forms of resistance against political margin- ate or negative is rethought in the work of Serres and systems alization. Failure, uncertainty, pessimism and unhappiness theorists such as Gregory Bateson and Niklas Luhmann, become spaces to invert the authority of normative politics. which positions it as both creative and productive [11]. The Attentive to what Sara Ahmed has termed the “cultural poli- parasite reveals that the commonly held belief of a two-way tics of emotion” [6], theorists such as Lauren Berlant, Jack transmission is a fallacy, and it ruptures this simple model Halberstam, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Sianne Ngai [7] with its constant movement between information and noise, have repurposed negativities as strategies of defense against chaos and order. socially and politically determined norms and as construc- Glitch music foregrounds the presence of the parasite in tivist articulations of deviant (or glitched) identities. Nega- the audio matrix. Anomalous sonic micro-objects such as tivity, far from outlining a nihilistic dead end, opens up new clicks, cuts, stutters, skips, pops, crackles, splinterings and critical and political spaces for minoritarian experience. A spikes have spread through digital music culture since the queer reading of failure—that it is a failure to adhere to the 1990s, forming the basis of a glitch aesthetic that has infected drive toward heteronormative infrastructures that define experimental and popular forms of electronic music. These the “good life”—points to a kind of radical questioning and sonic objects—the detritus arising from malfunctioning digi- a making-fluid of norms, identities and goals. This broad- tal audio technologies—form the material basis for music brush definition of queer theory is by no means intended practices that transform unwanted noise into signal. Prac- to be a definitive account of the field, which would be an titioners of glitch, rather than attempting to suppress noise, impossible task given the strategic indeterminacy that queer amplify and encourage it, inviting the parasite into their work theory invokes in regard to the limits of what constitutes to create unexpected ruptures in the surface of sonic and queerness. However, while the notion of the queer subject media artworks. The history of 20th- and 21st-century music resists definition—allowing for a continuous making and re- can be seen as a history of the struggle to either incorporate making of subjects and political projects—the overarching or expel the parasite, a struggle seen in works from Luigi critical project of queer theory is centered on a critique of Russolo’s manifesto, The Art of Noises [12], to John Cage’s normativity and an exploration of deviant practices. attempt to dissolve the distinctions between noise and mu- I am interested in the verb form of the term queer—as in sic, to guitar feedback and record crackle, to Yasunao Tone’s the queering of objects, discourses and disciplines. Patrick experiments with skipping CDs and the warped beat-making Dilley writes, “In academic circles, to queer something is to of contemporary electronic music. The enduring interest in analyze a situation or a text to determine the relationship the glitch as a material for aesthetic manipulation is the latest between sexuality, power, gender, and conceptions of normal evolution in what Steve Goodman has described as a “ ‘noise and deviant, insider and outsider” [8]. I broaden Dilley’s defi- virus’ that has inhabited the skin between sonic experimenta- nition to include race and class, in line with intersectional ap- tion and popular music” [13]. proaches to queer and feminist scholarship in recent decades New York–based multidisciplinary artist James Hoff uses [9]. Below I read queer politics through contemporary glitch the notion of a “noise virus” literally in his work, utilizing works, framing the productive possibilities of the parasite computer viruses to produce glitch music and paintings that in both sonic and political contexts. In doing so, I offer a crack, break and reconfigure digital sound and image files. queer reading of experimental sound practices, one that to Expanding on the well-known canon of glitch music practice, my mind is long overdue. I argue that the noisy canon of ex- Hoff employs digital parasites to infect source recordings at perimental music is an ideal space for thinking through the the level of code, where they spread, disrupt and ultimately queer possibilities of failure and negativity by other means. transform their host into something new, laden with stutters, skips and noises. Hoff’s manipulation of digital materials, Glice t h s and Viruses: concerned with creating emergent systems in which chance Disruption and Distribution and failure are magnified and agency is distributed, is realized The parasite, occupying the triple role of the host, the guest in his 2014 recording Blaster [14], for which he infected beats and noise, is the relation of relations in systems theory: a from 808 drum-machine samples with the Blaster virus, a figure that has the potential to produce newness through dif- computer worm that wreaked havoc on Microsoft Windows ference, deviation and interference. For Serres, noise is both operating systems in 2003. Drum grooves, in the style of pop the foundational disorder from which all relations emerge electronic music, are transformed by the Blaster virus into and a concept of minor difference that allows systems and pieces of great density, with any semblance of regular rhythm relations to evolve. Understanding noise and chaos as pro- destroyed in a process that corrupts the coded language of an ductive categories, he writes, audio file. Whereas earlier glitch and proto-glitch artists such as Tone and Marclay worked to break or crack reproduction The theory of the parasite brings us to minuscule evalua- and playback media (CDs and CD players, records and pho- tions of changes of state. It installs unexpected chains where nographs), Hoff’s work creates glitch by releasing a parasitic small cases or very tiny differences are followed by zero virus into the code of a digital audio file. effects or by effects of return and better resistance or by Glitch, as a process-based art form, destabilizes the cen- immense catastrophic effects [10]. trality of the author in the process of creation. By creating Noise itself is a foundational part of any relation or trans- conditions that utilize chance and error as compositional 38 Brooks, Glitch/Failure tools, glitch artists create conditions that give rise to emer- the relentless force that unsettles the fantasy of sovereignty. gent systems in which agency is radically distributed. Noise But its effects, in our view, are not just negative, since nega- is willfully introduced into sonic systems—as an aberration, tivity unleashes the energy that allows for the possibility of error or figure of disruption—then multiplies wildly and change [18]. unpredictably and manifests as audio noise in the result- Based on the amplification of error, failure is a key conceit ing compositions. In this way, glitch systems such as Hoff’s of glitch aesthetics, an art form based on disrupting, break- Blaster are parasitic in nature. The parasite feeds on the ap- ing and transforming media. Glitch musicians and artists parently stable source sound, disrupting its clean transmis- invite the figure of the parasite into their works to disrupt sion and refiguring it as something new. and destabilize sonic systems and challenge the autonomy of Hoff’s work is an Internet-era updating of glitch; although the artist in the process of creation. Similarly, queer theory the sonic outcome is very much in line with the musical proposes failure as a mode of being or, rather, a mode of genre of glitch, his choice and use of immaterial actors in unbeing in the world. Seeking to articulate alternatives to the the composition process draw out an important conceptual structural normativities that code lived realities under con- relationship between failure and distribution in networked temporary capitalism, queer theory looks to counterintuitive systems. The computer virus is a semiautonomous actor that spaces such as failure and negativity as ways to outline an Jussi Parikka describes as having “tendencies and powers identity politics that accounts for “othered” bodies—includ- of affiliation and affordance, but not of a human sort” [15]. ing, for example, nonwhite, nonheterosexual and disabled Human-made, yet with the ability to autonomously replicate bodies. To embrace failure is to seek out alternate forms of and spread, the computer virus provides a useful analogy knowledge production that reside in subcultures and coun- when thinking about disruption, distribution and circulation tercultures. As Jack Halberstam notes: in the networked age of information capitalism. Like a con- tagious accident or infectious disease, the virus can expose Failure allows us to escape the punishing norms that disci- the inner workings of networked societies, revealing paths pline behavior and manage human development with the of communication and interaction, flows of information and goal of delivering us from unruly childhoods to orderly commerce, and chains of effect. An attentiveness to viruses and predictable adulthoods. Failure preserves some of the and virality makes visible the otherwise invisible networks of wondrous anarchy of childhood and disturbs the suppos- systems and societies, drawing our attention to the point at edly clean boundaries between adults and children, win- which failure becomes evident. Central to the virus’s ability to ners and losers [19]. spread and multiply is its transformative capacity. In its abil- The affective modes associated with failure—including ity to mutate as it replicates, “the virus does not remain the “cruel optimism” (to quote Berlant), uncertainty, unhappi- same, nor does that which it confronts and transits through” ness, shame and humiliation—function as noise and work [16]. The virus transforms what it comes into contact with, to destabilize fixed notions of identity as rendered by the producing both a symbolic and a material rupture in the nor- categories of gender and sexuality. In the process the term mal functioning of a system (whether it is biological, politi- queer is transformed from a homophobic slur into a theory cal, digital or sonic). of deviation. Failure is reclaimed as a space of resistance, Queer Negativity: producing what Berlant refers to as an “impasse” [20], a term Constructing a Theory of Deviation usually designating a situation in which one cannot progress. Yet she redefines it as a productive and politically charged The emergence of the computer virus as a global phenom- temporality and a space that enon was mirrored by the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, with these twin viral threats producing discourses of fear and demands both a wandering absorptive awareness and a hy- activism that centered upon identity and security in relation pervigilance that collects material that might help to clarify to bodies—biological, political and computational. Queer things, maintain one’s sea legs, and coordinate the standard theory, emerging from the AIDS crisis and its homophobic melodramatic crises with those processes that have not yet emphasis on queerness as symbolic of pathology, contagion found their genre of event [21]. and extinction, began as a field striving to bring a “queerer The impasse, a failure to move forward, is a critical space in world into being” [17]. Challenging both the homophobic which one may resist the traditional structures of organizing discourses surrounding the AIDS epidemic and the privi- and reproducing political and affective life. Interference and leged position that the heterosexual couple is afforded as a disturbance—figured here as noise—can rupture the fabric referent and symbol of the normal and the correct, queer of normativity, revealing hegemonic power structures as on- theory critiques the construction and perpetuation of het- tologically unstable and chaotic. Foregrounding movement eronormativity, using negativity as a critical tool to consider and relationality, queer failure is a space in which alternative and articulate alternate possibilities of social reality. On the ordinaries may be constructed. importance of negativity in queer discourse, Lauren Berlant and Lee Edelman write: Glic t hed Listening Negativity for us refers to the psychic and social incoher- Glitch practices and their focus on cracked media and mal- ences and division, conscious and unconscious alike, that function produce a rupture in the listening experience. As trouble any totality or fixity of identity. It denotes, that is, Jacques Attali notes, the recording was originally intended to Brooks, Glitch/Failure 39 be “a surface for the documentation and preservation of rep- As a process that highlights failure by producing cracks resentation” [22]. The disruption of representation in glitch and breaks, glitch can be employed as a theoretical frame- practices disrupts the experience of listening (as a reproduc- work for understanding how disruption, deviation and tion of a live event) by highlighting and foregrounding the disorder are productive in systems. The glitch reveals the imperfection and error of reproduction technologies. Kelly substructures and hidden layers of systems. The presence of writes: “The cultural practice of listening to these media ob- the parasite—noise—always suggests the potential for new jects explicitly requires that the listener ignore or block out relations to be made and remade within a given system. A those elements of media that would return him or her to the queer listening practice listens to the noise of parasite, tuning actualities of the mediated experience. That is, the listener in to the sound of the relations. Such a listening practice uses is required to buy the myth of transparency” [23]. Practi- the ear as a way of thinking through relations of power; it is tioners of glitch expose this myth by forcing the listener to a mode of listening attuned to the production, transmission consider the listening experience as one that is mediated by and mutation of the affective tonalities of dominant neolib- technology and environment. The cracks that appear on the eral late-capitalist cultures. To read queer theory through the surface of the music foreground the act of listening as an lens of experimental music practices is an attempt to both assemblage of processes and objects and highlight the con- reorient the politics of experimental sonic arts and construct textual nature of the listening event. a queer politics of hearing. References and Notes 12 Luigi Russolo, The Art of Noises(New York: Pendragon Press, 1986). 1 Michel Serres, The Parasite,Lawrence R. Schehr, trans. (Minneapolis, 13 Steve Goodman, “Contagious Noise: From Digital Glitches to Audio MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2007). Viruses,” in Jussi Parikka and Tony D. Sampson, eds., The Spam Book: On Viruses, Porn, and Other Anomalies from the Dark Side of Digital 2 Caleb Kelly coined the term “cracked media” in his Cracked Media: Culture (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2009) p. 128. The Sound of Malfunction (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009). 14 James Hoff, Blaster, PAN 55 LP, 2014. 3 See, for example, Eliot Bates, “Glitches, Bugs, and Hisses: The De- generation of Musical Recordings and the Contemporary Musical 15 Jussi Parikka, Digital Contagions: A Media Archaeology of Computer Work,” in C. Washburne and M. Derno, eds., Bad Music: The Music Viruses (New York: Peter Lang, 2007) p. 10. We Love to Hate (New York: Routledge, 2004) pp. 212–225; Kim Cas- cone, “The Aesthetics of Failure: ‘Post-Digital’ Tendencies in Con- 16 Patricia Clough and Jasbir Puar, “Introduction,” Women’s Studies temporary Computer Music,” Computer Music Journal 24, No. 4, Quarterly 40, No. 1, 13–26 (2012) quote 14. 12–18 (2000); Kelly [2]; and Rosa Menkman, The Glitch Moment(um) 17 Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner, “What Does Queer Theory (Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2011). Teach Us about X?” PMLA 110, No. 3, 343–349 (1995) p. 344. 4 Donna Penn, “Queer: Theorizing Politics and History,”Radical His- 18 Lauren Berlant and Lee Edelman, Sex, or the Unbearable (Durham, tory Review 62 (1995) pp. 24–42, quote 26. NC: Duke Univ. Press, 2014) pp. vii–viii. 5 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge, 1999). 19 Jack Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure (Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 2011) p. 3. 6 Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 2004). 20 Lauren Berlant, Cruel Optimism (Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 2011) p. 4. 7 Lauren Berlant, Cruel Optimism (Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 2011); Jack Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure (Durham: Duke Univ. 21 Berlant and Warner [17]. Press, 2011); Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick, Touching Feeling: Affect, Peda- gogy, Performativity (Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 2003); Sianne Ngai, 22 Jacques Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of Music (Minneapolis, Ugly Feelings (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2007). MN: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2011) p. 89. 8 Patrick Dilley, “Queer Theory: Under Construction,” International 23 Kelly [2] p. 308. Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 12, No. 5, 457–472 (1999) quote 458. Manuscript received 2 January 2015. 9 Intersectionality is a term first coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, in “Demarginalising the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Femi- nist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Andrew Brooks is a Sydney-based artist, writer, re- Antiracist Politics,” University of Chicago Legal Forum 139 (1989) pp. searcher and organizer whose work takes the form of installa- 139–167. It describes a theory that examines how gender, race, class, ability, sexual orientation, caste and other categories of identity inter- tions, performances, text works and sound recordings. He has act on multiple and often simultaneous levels and how these factors performed and/or exhibited in Europe, Japan, Australia and relate to social and structural inequalities. New Zealand. He was a cocurator of the NOW now Festival 10 Serres [1] p. 194. of Exploratory Music from 2012 to 2014 and is a codirector of Firstdraft Gallery, Wolloomoolloo, Sydney (through 2016). 11 See, for example, Gregory Bateson, “Cybernetic Explanation,” in He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at University of New South Steps to an Ecology of Mind (New York: Ballantine Books, 1972); Nik- las Luhmann, Social Systems, John Bednarz Jr. with Dirk Baecker, Wales Art and Design, where he researches politics, experimen- trans. (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1988). tal sound and writing, and queer theory. 40 Brooks, Glitch/Failure ABSTRACT components are usually taken from either disused technolo- components.The available readilycheap, using artists with technologies, engineered highly expensive, to alternative Withinofpractice DIYelectronics the offers arts, sonic one M TERALLY L material foundations. computation in their practice while critically examining their in which artists simultaneously leverage the raw materials of gap, I propose a “literal critical” approach to DIY electronics Tosystems. this geological address and economic social, to relationship their to and technologies these of foundations material the to paid been has attention little literature, the world. Although such approaches have been documented in natural the and technologies sonic between interrelations close the recognizes that work make to components cheap “hack”artists which electronics,in electronicssalvagedand engineered electronics market has been do-it-yourself (DIY) highly this to alternative One [3,4]. documented well been has as health, human to and environment the to cifically spe- costs, its without been not has however, progression, This [2]. microprocessors neuromorphic to [1] transistors nano-component from successes, of progression rapid a highlighted have articles pressPopular marketplace. the to tools new bring to hardware and/or software in opments devel- scientific onrelied historically has Music technology with futuredirections. use, presentingseveralreal-worldexamplesandconcluding economic andgeologicalsystemsshapingtechnologieswe electronics asaliteralcriticalpracticeaddressingthesocial, The authorsetsoutanextensionofdo-it-yourself(DIY) DIY Electronics ©2015 ISAST files associatedwiththisissueofLMJ. foraudio,videoandothersupplementary See DIY: DIY: S y y stems n of Co of r A D m p u n t ati o n material constructions of the technologies we are using; as using; are we technologies the of constructions material into the deeper Weelectronics. look tomodern mustbegin material. Semiconductor technologies form the backbone of (ICs), with the ofbase the chip made from a semiconductor circuits integrated called are chip single one onto together combined field-effect circuits such of Sets (MOSFETs)[5]. transistors metal–oxide–semiconductor from built are this construction. CMOS circuits’ fundamental components computers digital transistor-based All areessentially to due technologies. (CMOS) metal–oxide–semiconductor tary complemen- from built are turn in that microprocessors of up made is which (CPU), unit processing central the is computerthe of core The transistors. silicon-based or coils copper magnets, neodymium as such computer, standard the in found metals and minerals earth rare same the use Itdetail. in technologiesnoted that of shouldthese these be Internet, it is beyond the scope the of and this systems article to playback look and into recording each loudspeakers, on component. Although DIY electronics practice relies heavily can start with the computer, breaking it apart to its most basic nomic and systems. geological technology is directly related to and embedded in social, eco- computationalcurrent our howunderstand better to begin of purchasing them. From this literal critical practice, we can be doing it ourselves, making the actual components instead should we then electronics, DIY practicingare artists as we If function. they how and from made are they what inside, is what see to up them opening and them observing using, By this I mean an actual dismantling of the machines we are electronics can be expanded through a relationship to social, economic and geological systems, DIY preexisting components. To bring attention to technologies’ practice stops at the level of building or rewiring circuits with their artists, majority of the For (EMFs). fields tromagnetic functions or by amplifying natural phenomena such as elec- to make sound, either by exploiting the technologies’ in-built produced goods. These components arethen hacked in order gies or purchased from specialist retailers distributing mass- Toapproach literalcritical a begin DIYelectronics,towe LEONARDO MUSICJOURNAL, V literal critical practice ol. 25,pp. 41–46,2015 . 41 impacts on the environment of information communication technologies (ICTs). They state some positive impacts, such as improved efficiency, detection and monitoring of envi- ronmental change, structural and life style transitions, such as growth of small industries and green consumerism, but there are no direct positive impacts of ICTs on the environ- ment [10]. The industry changes rapidly to keep consum- ers purchasing products, as Sy Taffel explains, highlighting companies’ “planned obsolescence” tactics in which devices have artificially brief life spans so that consumers buy more, and companies generate more profit [11]. Taffel also high- lights ICTs’ requirements for power, namely the combustion of fossil fuels that release harmful gases into the atmosphere as well as contributing detrimental ecological effects at the extraction sites [12]. ICT industries also negatively affect hu- man health, as detailed in a recent study in Taizhou City, China, a long-established center of e-waste recycling. The research tested for the dietary intake of polybrominated di- phenyl ethers (PBDEs) in children and adults consuming local foods such as fish, meat and eggs. By-products of the recycling process leach into the earth and local water sup- plies and are also carried as dust that is consumed by local Fig. 1. Joseph Henry, Quantity Magnet, 1830s. Today electromagnets populations and animals. Overexposure can lead to liver are used in many applications, including loudspeakers and hard drives. problems, sperm defects and impaired neurodevelopment (Photo © Smithsonian Institution Archives, Image No. 39040.) in children [13]. Through a literal critical approach, we can glimpse the Jonathan Kemp states, “We’re forgetting that materially ICs complex interrelations among social, economic and geo- are actually fashioned from metal tracks etched into mono- logical systems. Kemp [14], Jussi Parikka [15] and Matthew crystal silicon wafers through photolithography, and then Fuller [16] have contributed key literature on these issues in packaged into a ceramic or plastic housing with exposed relation to media arts; however, the relation to the sonic has electrical pins” [6]. received less attention. The electronics and computer industries rely on rare earth minerals and metals for the construction of all tech- Th e Sonic Arts and DIY Technology nologies. Semiconductor materials, for instance, are influ- The sonic arts have historically relied on scientific develop- enced by their geological environment, for example: “The ments in software/hardware to bring new tools to the mar- sulfides galena, chalcopyrite, and pyrite are semiconductors ketplace, from top-of-the-range microphones and speaker whose electrical resistivity and type are controlled by devia- diffusion systems to low/no budget, DIY electronics and tions from stoichiometry and impurity content, and hence circuit-bent instruments. Notable technologies well known by their geochemical environment” [7]. A geological envi- within sonic arts practices are inventions such as Thaddeus ronment obviously has a geographical location and hence Cahill’s Telharmonium (1897), Leon Theremin’s theremin a geopolitical environment—in the case of the computing industry, a very complex transnational one, with deposits of minerals often located in countries in conflict such as the Fig. 2. John Democratic Republic of Congo [8]. Not only the extraction Bardeen and Walter Brattain, of minerals needed for computer hardware but the entire first point-contact computer life cycle shares this transnational complexity, as transistor, 1947. Alastair Iles observes: “Computers are designed in the US, Transistors now Europe, and Japan, manufactured in countries like Taiwan form the bed- rock of ICs and and Singapore, produced with materials extracted from Af- microprocessors. rica and Australia, used almost everywhere in the world, and (Photo © Alcatel- sent for recycling and disposal, often in China, Indonesia Lucent USA Inc. Reprinted with and Pakistan” [9]. In his paper, Iles highlights the problems permission of faced with e-waste and the environmental and health con- Alcatel-Lucent sequences faced by recycling areas and employees especially USA Inc.) when collecting, dismantling, recovering and disposing of the materials used in computers. Frans Berkhout and Julia Hertin reinforce his concerns through their research into the 42 Jordan, DIY Electronics (1928) and the various Robert Moog synthesizers of the 1960s and 1970s. These inventions used current technologies of their time, harnessing their materials’ unique phenomena. The Telharmonium used electric generators to produce “an absolutely pure tone” [17]; the theremin used EMFs [18]; and Moog synthesizers are based on transistor technology [19]. Notable historical technologies contributing to the invention of various musical instruments can in themselves resemble works of art; the distinction between art and science is aes- thetically blurred. Examples include Joseph Henry’s elec- tromagnets of the 1830s (Fig. 1); John Bardeen and Walter Brattain’s point-contact transistor from 1947 (Fig. 2); and Jack Kilby’s first IC (1958) (Fig. 3). Fig. 3. Jack Kilby, first integrated circuit, 1958. The messy aesthetic is quite far removed from the clean minute black chips we see today. The progress of the sonic arts goes hand in hand with the (Photo © Texas Instruments Inc. Courtesy of Texas Instruments.) progress of technology. From the invention of the transistor to the first IC and then the birth of the modern computer, artists have been looking for alternatives to expensive equip- transistors and ICs, predating the home computer [23]. These ment. One alternative to the high-end technology market can composer-hackers were generally self-taught and built “black be found through DIY electronics, a practice popularized boxes,” mainly filters, ring modulators and delay circuits, today by books such as Nicolas Collins’s Handmade Elec- with newly available transistor-based circuits. Thom Holmes tronic Music [20]. Most of the technology, aesthetics and cir- describes what this new breed of composer-hackers, as op- cuit designs in the book date from the 1970s [21], coinciding posed to those using high-end commercial technology, were with the origins of the U.S. computer industry in Califor- doing with basic electronic components: “Composers who nia [22]. Artists such as Collins, David Tudor and Gordon could afford to use commercially manufactured synthesiz- Mumma, among others, made instruments and music with ers were working with cookie-cutter sounds, rhythms, and Fig. 4. Ralf Baecker, crystal field oscillator close up, part of Irrational Computing installation, 2011–2012. The whole installation uses semiconductor crystals such as silicon, quartz or silicon carbide. (© Ralf Baecker) Jordan, DIY Electronics 43 Fig. 5. Martin Howse, Sketches towards an earth computer, installation, 2014. Hanging earth container (Perspex and RTV silicon) with forest earth and alternating copper and cuprous oxide plates. (© Martin Howse) preset controls. The tinkerers, on the other hand, were in “made by real time manipulation of mineral components many ways reinventing music itself. It was a time for violat- from computers, including: calcite, copper, copper sulphate, ing the first principles of music composition to see where it iron ore, lead, magnesium, magnetite, quartz, silica sand, would lead” [24]. But where does it lead? silicon carbide, silver in combination with direct current, fire, hydrochloric acid, a pyroelectric infrared sensor, sul- Casr hing the Core phuric acid, and 4093, 40106, and 74HC integrated cir- A small selection of contemporary composer-hackers cuits” [27]. The mineral components are processed live by demonstrate a literal critical practice. Nyle Steiner’s website subjecting them to heat via Bunsen burners, gas torches [25] provides an essential DIY guide to building oscillators, and microwaves; the violent chemical reactions are ampli- transmitters, diodes and amplifiers from materials such as fied through a sound system. Martin Howse and Martin zinc, copper, iron pyrite and germanium. His experiments Kuentz’s live performance substrate is described as “tabletop thus provide a simple way to bypass more commercial tech- micro-material-theatre” and uses combinations of salvaged nologies. Steiner’s work has been source of reference and electronic equipment and fragments of material underpin- inspiration for some of the following composers. For ex- nings of digital technologies. The resulting din is the chaotic ample, Richard Brown’s Electrochemical Synthesiser [26] is high-frequency noise of a system on the brink of crashing or constructed with test tubes containing salt water with copper booting up [28]. Ralf Baeckers’s works Crystal Set/Self Test and aluminum electrodes, situated on a wooden keyboard and Irrational Computing (Fig. 4) use silicon, galena, germa- resembling that of a small, crude piano. When the keys are nium or silicon carbide to “form a kind of primitive mac- pressed, the test tubes are tilted so the salt water runs to one roscopic signal processor” generating static crackles and end to make the circuit, allowing electricity to flow between small visible glows [29]. These examples treat sound as a by- the copper and aluminum electrode. This reaction is ampli- product of the creative process. There is no musical or com- fied, and the sounds of the electrochemical circuit are heard. positional intention as such; instead, these works allow the Jonathan Kemp’s live material noise performance setup re- machines, or rather the elements of the machines, to com- sembles a chemistry lab and, differing from Brown’s work, pose themselves. makes no reference to a traditional musical interface. It is Some projects that further address the material founda- 44 Jordan, DIY Electronics Conl c usion The literal critical practice of DIY electronics addresses the social, economic and geological systems shaping technolo- gies we use daily. Through this approach we can gain insight into technologies’ interrelations with nature. By reducing technologies to fundamental components and discovering how they work, we can build crude semblances of techno- logical devices ourselves using materials available to us in our surrounding environment instead of relying on industry. We can see that the progress of the sonic arts goes hand in Fig. 6. Ryan Jordan, derelict electronics workshop, 2014. hand with the progress of technology, but with a literal criti- Crystal amplifier powered by clay battery using iron pyrite deposits in cal practice approach we rediscover earlier technologies and the earth at Oficinas do Convento, Portugal. (Photo © Ryan Jordan) make alternate versions of them. It should be noted that all the works cited here rely on an audio mixer, loudspeaker sys- tions of technology include Howse’s Sketches towards an tems, standard ICs and batteries. Advocates of this practice earth computer [30] (Fig. 5), which sets out potential pos- should begin to look at reducing such reliance as well as at sibilities for building abstract forms of computation directly how to generate energy to power the resulting electronics. into and with the earth. Combinations of minerals and met- The audible output of these technologies is inevitably als are deposited in the earth, allowing natural processes to noise, which aesthetically suits this practice. As Joanna control their functions. Other projects such as The Crystal Demers, in writing about noise music, states: “The liminal World [31] by Kemp, Howse and me, experiment with the qualities of this music . . . all wrest music out of a reasoned, extraction of minerals from computers and e-waste, mim- ordered plane and thrust it back into the world of objects icking hazardous recycling processes, returning them to the and raw materials” [34]. Ultimately we listen to the noise earth and (re-)creating semblances of fundamental technolo- of the materials of the machines; electrons passing through gies. An offshoot from a project within The Crystal World holes and quantum processes unfolding in time and space. led to derelict electronics workshops [32] (Fig. 6). In derelict Far from being disjointed and dematerialized from nature we electronics, I have been building, through workshops, crude are far more connected with it than would at first appear. As solar cells, diodes and crystal amplifiers from chalcopyrite, knowledge grows of the hereditary lineage of the technolo- iron pyrite, galena, germanium, silicon, silicon carbide, cop- gies we use daily, it is perhaps time to reconsider our uses and per and copper oxide, with the specific intention of using interactions with it. One extreme is to follow the DIY route them in live performances as sound sources [33]. to its literal molten core—that of the earth itself. References and Notes 9 Alastair Iles, “Mapping Environmental Justice in Technology Flows: Computer Waste Impacts in Asia,” Global Environmental Politics 4, 1 Roger Highfield, “World’s Smallest Transistor Is the Size of a Mol- No. 4, 76–107 (2004) p. 76. Posted online 13 March 2006. ecule,” The Telegraph, 18 April 2008: Jordan, DIY Electronics 45 21 Collins [20] p. xi. 34 Joanna Demers, Listening through the Noise: The Aesthetics of Ex- perimental Electronic Music (Oxford, New York; Oxford Univ. Press, 22 Iles [9] p. 78. 2010) p. 91. 23 Holmes [18] p. 207–218. 24 Holmes [18] p. 215–216. Manuscript received 2 January 2015. 25 26 46 Jordan, DIY Electronics ABSTRACT litical struggles between grassroots, pro-democratic radical radical pro-democraticgrassroots, between struggles litical technology,chical network music can replicate ongoing po- heterar- deploy can that form a As hand. in hand go them support to required structures organizational the of ation interaction, too. pragmatics of citizen participation play out in novel musical the and utopian interplayideals of an Such solutions[3–6]. utopian ideal offering than rather systems political within equality increase to seek that democracy of forms radical inspired have tools technological New [2]. self-governance of levels higher and equality ever-greater for striving tions popula- of process ongoing an as democratization of uum contin- the consider we system, discrete a as democracy of network music works. mostadvancedof the at heart is edge the political a with [1] “transformativeSuchcreativity” itself.government of basis constitutional very changingbuton the structuresernment gov- preexisting within working on not focus #Occupy, as itself. Analogously, the most radical protestcreation musical movements,of processes such very the change to but ation cre- musical ofpatterns existing generatecontent within to Currently, the most exciting network music systems seek not data structuresonsociopoliticalhierarchy. maneuvering indevelopingsystemsthatconsidertheimplicationof tinged explorationsinnetworkmusicandexaminestheroomleftfor distribution. Thisessayprovidesexamplesofcurrentpolitically relatingtocommunicationstructuresandpower democratic concerns heterarchical technologiesthatenablethemtoaddressradical Network musicensemblesareuniquelypositionedtodeploy analyze factorsinfluencinghierarchicalstructureinmusicensembles. developments andnonhierarchicalnetworkstructuresallowsusto A reviewofradicaldemocratictheoriesinfluencedbytechnological Changing Music’s Constitution ©2015 ISAST files associatedwiththisissueofLMJ. foraudio,videoandothersupplementary See U.K. Email: t design choices—i.e. systems that can facilitate data data facilitate can that systems choices—i.e. design e r d k So Mu i c c Theo LEONARDO MUSICJOURNAL, V s i a i c l O r y rd a e n r d in in Te t c h h e Age of of Age e nologi ol. 25,pp. 47–52,2015 c a l ly 47 move from feudalism to partial democracy, is one such exam- other, less transparent approaches to incorporating radical ple [10]. More recently, the emergence of knowledge-based democratic theory and practice into music ensembles should economies has been facilitated by nonhierarchical, many- now be considered. to-many networks that are efficient tools for the distribution and fast exchange of knowledge, and here collaboration has Co mpaRATive Analysis of Democracy driven the production of new and profitable ideas [11,3]. in Music Ensembles Alongside these technological developments, political An earlier study analyzed the operating political structure of theorists have explored communication and power distri- 160 network music ensembles [15], deducing structural fea- bution in political systems. Jessop, for example, describes tures that can help to determine the relative agency of group the formation of states as collectives of institutions defined members. Table 1 takes a broader look, generalizing some by their communication channels, and politics as a social of the categorizations in the above study for different forms relation [12]. Radical democratic theorists have proposed of musical ensembles and real-world organizations, and in- various models of social organization that seek to modify cluding descriptions of factors that have been described by power structures and to implement less hierarchical versions political theorists as determinants in shaping the structure of of representative democracy or otherwise to entirely reform a society. These include an organization’s components, hier- political interaction into self-organizing networks. While archical structures, communication channels [12], decision- new models of political organization inspired by “power- making processes and levels of power sharing and autonomy free” Internet structures offer utopian visions of society, and among its members [8]. many see Internet-driven “biopolitical” production [11] as While political systems structure the relationship between an opportunity to restructure societies, some governments citizens and state, balancing individual autonomy against so- perceive interconnected societies as a threat to political order cietal value, music ensembles have the rather simpler task and have abused their power to track Internet communica- of structuring the process of creative musical production. tions and encroach on their citizens’ online liberties. Just as in real-world societies, performers’ autonomy in mu- Alongside the Twitter-facilitated green movement in Iran sic ensembles may be a key indicator of relative democracy and the Arab Spring movements that led to the ousting of within those ensembles. Freely improvised music, in which several autocratic leaders, one of the most notable network- almost all decision-making occurs during the performance, facilitated radical democratic movements is #Occupy. In ad- has been described variously as an antiauthoritarian prac- dition to being a vital tool for organizing and distributing tice and as an anarchistic form of musical organization. In information to large numbers of geographically dispersed free-improvisation ensembles, musicians are considered to protestors, the Internet, in #Occupy’s view, is a model for be autonomous individual creatives who freely engage in deconstructing societal hierarchies. collaborative processes; the socially driven decision-making As the only “spaces” that are free of systematic hierarchi- offers them more autonomy than hierarchical structures can cal structure, the many-to-many communication networks provide [16,17]. of the Internet are, for #Occupy, the sole place that a radi- Although string quartets perform mostly notated music— cal revolution can be organized without pressure from real- which considerably reduces performer autonomy—they do world political systems. Furthermore, the movement views employ a large amount of deliberation during rehearsal [18]. heterarchical communications as inherently stronger than This immediate collaborative exchange is highly related to hierarchical organization: “Working in a horizontal way and the radical democratic ideals of scholars such as Habermas, using network structures, it is difficult for the system to dis- who posited participatory deliberation as integral to deci- mantle you, and it’s the only real democratic way” [13]. Posi- sion-making [19]. One can see the antithesis in clearly hier- tioning the protest movement both in physical public space archical structures such as the symphony orchestra, which and online, #Occupy members have sought to use strength was developed largely in order to accurately realize notated in numbers to construct a global revolutionary message that music. Orchestral musicians must interpret the composer’s can resonate across diverse societies and pressure govern- score with accuracy and according to the interpretive deci- ments to address political and economic corruption, which sions of the conductor. Normally, performer innovation is the movement believes are inherent in hierarchical political not desirable, and performers with diverse playing styles may systems. even be considered disruptive to group unity. One clearly politically oriented network music project, An obvious tension can be seen, then, in network music Crisis R Us, draws directly from #Occupy’s organizational groups that use network technologies to instigate varying foundations as it seeks to unify diverse voices around a central amounts of sideways data exchange and ask performers to issue—in this case, women’s crisis. Crisis R Us borrows tech- engage in directed improvisation activities—yet still conform niques used by radical democratic protest groups, including to orchestra-like organizational and decision-making struc- open assembly and deliberation, as it develops performance tures (director > composer > conductor > performer)—often material around specific themes considered important by even using the moniker “laptop orchestra” [15]. each performing group. Local performers are joined by au- Perhaps less problematically, the Grande Internationale diovisual streams from remote contributors to position local Audio Streaming Orchestra utilizes orchestral hierarchy to issues within a global framework [14]. Although Crisis R Us manage improvisations by globally dispersed performers. is clearly directly informed by radical democratic practice, Group members send audio streams from remote global 48 Knotts, Changing Music’s Constitution Tb a le 1. The democratic potential of music ensembles. Titles in brackets indicate positions that are not always present; often an honorific role with little/no actual political power. Communication channels in parentheses indicate channels are secondary. Type of Decision- Level of level of Organization Hierarchy Communication Making Power Citizen or Group and Roles Channels Processes Sharing Autonomy Authoritarian states Head of state Law making Directive Low Low Head of government Political rhetoric Government Propaganda State institutions Citizens Democratic states [Head of state] Law/policy-making Directive Low [33] High Head of government Political rhetoric Elements of Government Lobbying deliberation State institutions Elections to various Citizens Polling degrees Petitioning Referenda #Occupy movement Self-organizing Verbal Discussion/ group members Visual debate Textual Voting Deliberative Social media Service providers Textual High Software designers Data Users Open-source Developers Data Deliberative Mid-high High software production Users Textual Multitude Free-improvisation [Group leader] Aural Multitude High High group (instrumental) Group members (Visual) [34] Symphony orchestra [Director] Visual Directive Low Low Composer Aural Conductor Section leaders Section members String quartet Composer Aural Deliberative Mid Mid Group leader Visual (most often first violin) Group members Pop band [Manager] Aural Deliberative Mid Mid-high Songwriter (Visual) [35] or directive Frontman (singer or lead guitar) Band members Non-networked [Composer] Aural Multitude Mid-high Mid-high electronic music [Instrument builder] (Visual) [35] Deliberative group [Group leader] Directive Group members Network music group [Composer] Aural Disputing Potentially Potentially [Instrument builder] Data Multitude high high [Group leader] Textual Aggregate Group members (e.g. chat screens) (Visual) [36] Knotts, Changing Music’s Constitution 49 locations to the location of the performance, and a performer possibility of freely designed data distribution alone does not there mixes the streams in real time. Although it conforms necessarily lead to democratic interaction, echoing Inglehart to the anarchistic spirit of free-improvisation ensembles, the and Welzel’s theory of formal versus effective democracy [7]. performance has an obvious hierarchy: The performer mix- ing the streams freely chooses the context of the performers’ Network-Facilitated Composer Autonomy audio contributions in relation to other streams. Dialogues Although many artists insist that reciprocity is an essential among the largely autonomous performers, therefore, are component of democratic music-making, and although most mediated by the aggregation of the streams presented by the network music systems are designed to facilitate real-time mixer [20]. musical collaboration, Makelberge takes an anti-novelty stance, proposing that a critical aspect of musical develop- Harceter hical Data Exchange and ment is the creation of new technologies that will facilitate Democratic Musical Interaction greater composer autonomy. Describing the large-scale col- Weinberg proposes that network music ensembles are lection and distribution of samples as an artifact of the In- unique in that their use of networking technology makes ternet age, he asserts that individual creativity, supported by data exchange possible and opens communication channels collective gathering of resources, is “truly democratic” [28]. unavailable in other forms of music ensemble [21]. Informa- In light of the present investigation, however, valuing in- tion exchange in network music ensembles includes not only dividual composers’ autonomy without formally acknowl- aural and visual information but also text (via chat room– edging the social structure that supports their creation style messaging systems) and musical and other data. Hugill’s conforms to traditional musical hierarchies and acts against taxonomy of “Internet music” broadly categorizes network technologically mediated reform of music creation processes. music projects by interaction and use of technology, implic- Using processes similar to those advocated by Makelberge, itly acknowledging data organization’s role in creative music for example, SoundSon is a global network of composers processes [22]. who record sound files in their own geographical vicinity As Boden proposes, computing and artificial intelligence and add them to a shared pool of resources, with the aim can allow us to imagine new ways of thinking [1]. Network of facilitating the creation of new electroacoustic works. music borrows the data structure of Internet-based informa- SoundSon projects variously use individual and collective tion exchange, which has typically led to a focus on com- (sequential) editing processes, creating multiple dialogues munication structures, multiplayer instruments and the around the recontextualization of material. However, facili- unique possibilities offered by network technology, such tating dialogue among participants and enforcing collective as geographically dispersed collaboration. Often the most decision-making do not appear to be integral to its project, interesting network music systems are those that offer the and thus SoundSon misses the vital deliberative step that greatest novelty in interaction among players, although, of moves network-facilitated music-making toward its demo- course, an interesting musical result is also desirable. Barbosa cratic potential [29]. foregrounds collaboration as a defining element of network Deliberative Communications in Network Music music [23]. In the 1970s, when the League of Automatic Music Com- Instantiating deliberative communications, collective de- posers (LAMC) began to experiment with routing data be- cision-making and socially focused interactions has great tween microcomputers, they recognized the importance of impact on the way that ensembles communicate and col- data structures, data types and methods of data exchange to laborate. Network music ensembles regularly use textual the collaborative process. Although technical hurdles limited and other opinion-gauging communications during per- LAMC’s experiments, its members explored the democratic formance, which allows us to rethink musical exchange and potential of the medium and sought to design systems that to position network music as having a unique potential to facilitate elements of group decision-making [24,25]. address radical democratic concerns about communication The democratic potential of data sharing was further fore- and power distribution. grounded in later pieces by the Hub [26] as well as pieces by In practice, sharing opinions in real time and designing its individual members. In Chris Brown’s Wheelies compo- performance-ready consensus-forming mechanisms mean sition (1992), performers change their own timbral param- that the hierarchy of decision-making seen in other ensemble eters but yield control of their rhythmic parameters to other structures is not vital to ensuring musical coherence. Per- performers in the group. In Scot Gresham-Lancaster’s Stuck formers can act autonomously but mediate their actions note piece (1994), each performer designs a sound that has according to real-time feedback from their collaborators. just one control parameter, which is freely available for all Network music bands such as Glitch Lich have asserted that the other players in the group to control, foregrounding the the important factors in group performance are the interac- social interplay and group decision-making necessitated by tions facilitated by the technology rather than the technol- opening up instruments to multiplayer control [27]. ogy itself [30], a position made visible through the band’s As sections below elucidate, contemporary network mu- decision to project their textual communications during per- sic systems continue to explore the potential that networked formances, giving the audience insight into the performers’ communication and data sharing offer to collaborative mu- real-time deliberations about how best to proceed with the sical production. Yet, as an earlier study deduced [15], the musical interaction. 50 Knotts, Changing Music’s Constitution Multiplayer Instruments satirical intent remains perfectly valid. Nonetheless, recent One final innovation made possible through data sharing is democratic theories arising from Internet-informed and the multiplayer-control musical instrument. These instru- -connected communities are perhaps the most inspiring in- ments remove natural hierarchies formed around the acous- fluences on new network music work. tic and technical properties of particular instruments and Musicians have used networks to acknowledge and subvert tools and allow performers to act within the same possibility the power relationships of musical production, to attempt space. System outputs can be aggregated from a multiplicity collective action and aggregation of inputs and to explore of inputs. Player action, although autonomous, is modulated interdependency and collaborative decision-making. Net- by group action. This process subverts the formation of natu- work ensembles, more than any other genre of music, have ral social hierarchies, as when, for example, a performer in a actively ventured into structuring the social shape of creative free-improvisation group instantiates an effective hierarchy musical activity. by excessive soloing. Real-world politics has been unable to implement a full, The NOMADS system, designed by Burtner, Kemper and radically democratic, nonhierarchical system against eco- Topper, specifically intends to facilitate interaction among a nomic and populist pressures. Likewise, network music sys- large number of people, and the designers even coined the tems under the pressure of traditional musical values [23] term socio-synthesis to describe the aggregation of a large have perhaps fallen short of developing systems that could number of data inputs into a predefined synthesis engine. fully engage with technologically facilitated radical demo- Burtner describes both how the system facilitates collective cratic politics. action by giving many participants a small amount of control Introducing professional performers into participatory apiece and how that individual contribution is “minimized performances undermines attempts at collective action by or lost” within the emergent dynamics of the collective ac- installing a hierarchy in which participants are merely aggre- tion [31]. gated contributors without individual voices. Solo editing of Analogously to the #Occupy movement, Burtner’s sys- pooled sound files limits the influence of the sample-selection tem implements a collective action that prioritizes a unified act on the final product. Live-mixing multiple live streams message over supporting minority voices; however, the prac- elevates the mixer-performer into a position of power over ticalities of managing up to 500 participant inputs means subordinate performers, who must continuously jostle for a the system lacks the deliberation required to deduce which higher level in the mix. output would most adequately represent the collective voice The above examples elucidate attempts to shape the musi- of participants. Musical choices are largely predefined, and cal quality of multiple inputs into an output that possesses decision-making possibilities are limited and abstract. In the a unified voice, but in the process, these attempts restrict opera Auksalaq, participants control the number of raindrop participants’ autonomy, reducing their voices and contribu- sounds emanating from their mobile devices, within set lim- tions to merely the first step in an ultimately hierarchical its, as one of a number of ways to interact with the perfor- process of musical production. Network music systems, in mance. However, the illusion of participation is undermined their current state, fall back on tried and tested means of or- by the inclusion of professional soloists, who generate the ganization due to system designers’ mistrust of the capability bulk of the musical material. of participant autonomy in self-organizing groups to create Even when specifically aimed at facilitating collective action, musical coherence. network music projects often miss the mark in terms of fulfill- We could argue that using “power-neutral” network tech- ing their technological potential or dismantling musical hier- nologies has enabled network music to make more attempts archies, instead favoring musical success over citizen equality. to democratize social processes of music production than other music forms allow, but we are not yet at the point of Conu cl sion building systems that are fully nonhierarchical and capable Political models provide great stimulus to motivate musi- of self-critically responding to power struggles in their inter- cal action and interaction, and the playing out of political nal structures. However, just as theorists have come to view theory within the “safe” domain of music [32] even encom- democratization as an ongoing process rather than defining passes socially aware but deliberately autocratic structures. democracy as a definite state [2], at least we have started to de- Uncomfortable, if not horrific, human political misadventure molish the musical autocracies of the past and begun to liber- may still be the basis of an interesting musical piece, and ate network music citizens to shape their own musical realities. References and Notes pean Journal of Law and Technology 1, No. 3 (2010): Knotts, Changing Music’s Constitution 51 6 H. Heclo, “Hyperdemocracy,” Wilson Quarterly 23, No. 1, 62–71 A. Chandler and N. Neumark, eds., At a Distance: Precursors to Art (1999). and Activism on the Internet (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005). 7 R. Inglehart and C. Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and 26 The Hub, an ensemble formed in 1986 in the San Francisco Bay Democracy: The Human Development Sequence (Cambridge: Cam- Area, is one of the pioneers of interactive computer network music. bridge Univ. Press, 2005). Growing from the League of Automatic Music Composers, the Hub consists of John Bischoff, Tim Perkis, Chris Brown, Scot Gresham- 8 A. Lijphart, “Constitutional Design for Divided Societies,” Journal Lancaster, Mark Trayle and Phil Stone. See Scot Gresham-Lancaster, of Democracy 15, No. 2, 96–109 (2004). “The Aesthetics and History of the Hub: The Effects of Changing Technology on Network Computer Music,” Leonardo Music Journal 9 J.S. Dryzek and S. Niemeyer, “Reconciling Pluralism and Consensus 8 (1998). See also Douglas Kahn, “A Musical Technography of John as Political Ideals,” American Journal of Political Science 50, No. 3, Bischoff,” Leonardo Music Journal 14 (2004). 634–649 (2006). 27 C. Brown, “Indigenous to the Net: Early Network Music Bands in the 10 L. Winner, Democracy in a Technological Society (Dordrecht, Ger- San Francisco Bay Area”: 52 Knotts, Changing Music’s Constitution ABSTRACT distances relates to a specific level of comfort that we feel feel we that comfort of level specific a to relates distances of set Each others. to distances social andphysical of series a maintain people wherebyproxemics of theory a outlined commonly discussed in terms of are territory) of notions and distance (specifically sitioning device. rhetorical a as sound of positioning spatial the use can we how understand practitioners as we that and media of ing theorists how the spatial as positioning of sound can understand influence our read- we that important therefore is It scene. a in elements other from us distract and from away attention our to draw particular to objects or emphasized characters orbe draw can attention Sounds connected disconnected. distant; or or close or emotionally within scene; positioned a are outside we sound, of use the Through distances. social or psychological physical, emotional, ate is an important perspective element of storytelling and can be used Auditory to cre- [1]. scene” the within characters relationships—physical the the asemotional—between and well as action screen the with relationship our concerning make we decisions reflects sound in “Perspective dialogue, on book a in P outlines Purcell John As overlooked. often is sound of positioning spatial the of potential rhetorical The Soni that maybeusedtostrengthenpoliticalaims. to showhowsonicproxemicscanbeusedasarhetoricaldevice announcements authors applytheframeworktothreepublicservice of sonicspatializationandproxemicsinaudiovisualmedia.The This paperintroducesaframeworkforthecreationandanalysis ofPersuasion and theArt Sonic Proxemics ©2015 ISAST files associatedwiththisissueofLMJ. foraudio,videoandothersupplementary See r An AnalyticalFramework n Collin i l l o C n R K o a xemi e c s proxemics. Edward Hall [2] s d n a u R t h o D 1.2 m to 3.7 m, and m, 3.7 to m 1.2 social distances, where acquaintances there, may interact,From are fromcm. 122 to up cm 46 from ranges and croach en- members family or friends let we which in space the is and is reserved for people very close to us. whispering or touching embracing, to correlatesbody, our with the person. The influence an audience by placingthat audience in aparticular significantly can effects sound of positioning spatial ceived per- the how show to framework a provide we paper, this persuasive the power of proxemics rhetoricalasa In device. emphasis on particular a with nor effects, sound to applied However,approach been knowledge,this ouryetnot to has [6,7]. musicandvoice to comesit when scholarsinterestto tion or distract focus. Sonic proxemics is an area of growing atten-drawand charactersrelationships the aboutbetween audience identificationwith characters, provide information enhance that techniques mixing and recording using ence audi- the for crafted be can perspective auditory an view, ofpoint with Asaudience. the and source sounding a from a sonic proxemics relating to the subjective auditory distance present at the event” [5]. from the communicator or from the perceptionof physical the distance that would separate him son refer to this space as the “optical distance”; “the viewer’s mimics that social and emotional perspective distances. Ferguson subjective and Fergu- a creates object the to camera the from distance The on. so and shots, full and medium by characterized are distances social zone, personal the in or person by placing object us intimately an close. Medium to close-ups are significance particular a provide and tion atten-draw may close-ups extreme and example,close-ups proxemicFor these [3,4]. ofzonesterms in used andofken and respond with discomfort. back drawear,our in will we whisper intimateto our space feeling uncomfortable and defensive: If a stranger steps into us leave can it upon, encroached are distances these When c As with visual proxemics using camera angles, we can infer spo- sometimes are angles camera television, and film In k w r a y LEONARDO MUSICJOURNAL, V public intimate distance, closer than 46 cm to distances are beyond that space. space. that beyond are distances event if he were actually ol. 25,pp. 53–56,2015 Personal distance 53 subjective perspective. We use three examples from public aspect to analyze: A little reverb sounds warm and service announcements to illustrate our analytical frame- pleasant, but too much reverb (with little low- work in action. We thus explore and explain how sound can frequency damping, as in the examples below) be used to subjectively position an audience and so be used sounds cold, suffocating and unreal. Reverberation as a persuasive, rhetorical device. can help to create a sense of space and place, and of emotional associations with those places—for Aa Fr mework for the Analysis instance, open spaces and loneliness, or warm, and Creation of a Sonic Proxemics soft rooms. Likewise, more early reflections can Sonic distance, and subsequently sonic proxemics, is created lead to the perception of a smaller, more using several different techniques. These aspects of sound claustrophobic space. Various environmental can be combined, conflated and confused through artificial effects can be used to simulate obstructions or means in post-production—heightening the volume of a nat- other objects in the path of the direct signal urally quiet sound or having a low volume on a naturally loud [8]. The spatial signatures of one type of space sound, reverb on a close sound, and so on. In other words, may be artificially imposed on another in post- even a recording of an original live event can be significantly production. Additional processing techniques manipulated after the recording. such as compression can influence the way that the sound is heard after processing. 1. Microphone selection: Some microphones are better at capturing more delicate sounds as well 4. Amplitude: In the natural world, loud sounds tend to as different frequencies, and some have a faster be closer, so when sounds are artificially amplified, transient response time (the ability to respond to they seem to be closer to us. When amplified beyond changing sounds), which influences the timbre of what is natural, they can feel unnerving and as if in the sound. For instance, a condenser microphone our intimate zone. such as the Neumann U87 has a nearly flat frequency response except for a slight lift in frequencies from 5. Mixing (in relation to the loudspeaker position): about 5k Hz to 15 kHz. This higher frequency range By pushing sounds into particular speakers when will catch more sibilance on a voice, for example, and one knows the approximate speaker position setup, give the impression of closeness. we can adjust the perceived distance of sounds. A sound mixed front and center, for instance, is 2. Microphone distance and angle from the source: likely going to appear closer than a sound placed A closer microphone will capture small sounds that in the rear right speaker in a theater mix. Since in even our ears may miss. On vocals, this closeness this paper we deal with television advertisements means capturing mouth smacks, tiny clicks from (usually mixed in stereo and not surround), we inside the mouth from tongue and teeth. The angle are not concerned with this aspect of sound can affect the “warmth” of a sound, as well as the positioning here. nasality of the noise. Also, when the microphone is We therefore propose an analytical and creative frame- close to the object, it causes what is known as the work for sonic proxemics that should include the following “proximity effect,” which means a boost or lift in the considerations: lower frequencies of the sound, making for a richer, “fatter” effect. The mix of direct (no reverberation 1. The amplitude of the sound in relation to other from the room) and indirect (reflections) sound sounds in the scene can influence the perceived distance (close miking will have stronger direct versus indirect sound). 2. The timbre of the sound in relation to its frequency Microphone distance can usually be approximately spectrum and envelope equated to perceptual distance in the recording; 3. The use of processing effects, particularly in relation however, as mentioned, other effects can alter this to other sounds in the scene perspective. 4. An estimated perceived microphone distance from 3. Use of reverberation and signal processors: As the the source microphone moves farther away from the source, more of the room’s tone is picked up, mixing 5. The positioning in the loudspeakers (or headphones) the reverberation with the direct signal. More 6. Juxtapositions between visual and auditory reverberation can give us the impression of distance. perspective. Reverberation can appear different depending on whether it uses high- or low-frequency damping Not all of these points may be relevant at any one time, but effects: With little low-frequency damping, the each should be considered in analysis and production. We perceived space appears large, solid and “rumbly” now turn our attention to implementing this framework in (basements, caves). Reverberation can be a tricky an analysis of three public service announcements. 54 Collins and Dockwray, Sonic Proxemics and the Art of Persuasion SoniP c roxemics in Public Service camera, the scene is saturated with reverberation, perhaps to Announcements hint at the emptiness of the house, or the “other-worldliness” While all advertisement aims to persuade using a variety of of the scene. The juxtaposition of reverberation with close emotional cues, public service announcements (PSAs) often miking puts us in the empty, sad space of the home. attempt to persuade audiences by evoking strong emotional In “Sarah’s Story,” a PSA about motor neurone disease, we responses, most commonly through “fear appeals” [9,10]. watch a young woman in what looks like a basement of an In this way, PSAs are very close in nature to political ad- office building undergo considerable physical distress as her vertising. We have chosen to use PSAs rather than political muscles fail her, she’s flung about the room and her clothes advertising here so as not to introduce any of our own politi- are removed, leaving her nearly naked and contorted. The cal bias into the analysis. While there are many audiovisual sounds are like those in a horror film: We hear groaning, parameters that influence the emotional response in PSAs monstrous sounds and screeches that would not be present [11,12], a notably unexplored area is the use of sound. We if the scene were meant to be real rather than metaphoric. We examine here how sound effects are used in three PSAs us- also hear digital glitching sounds often used to signify a tape ing the proxemic framework outlined above. The PSAs used fast-forwarding or sudden jump of time, to show the progres- here had been previously collected by an unknown YouTube sion of the illness over time. Many of the sounds in the scene user, “HelloImAPizza,” under the title “Top 10 Most Effective go through phases in which they are muffled and treated with British Adverts/Commercials” [13]. The particular collection low pass filters (attenuating higher frequencies), as if we are was selected rather than other PSAs because it was the first going underwater, giving the impression of being strangled response to come up in our search for “effective advertising.” or drowned. Likewise, some sounds that we would expect to Comments in the collection often describe the emotional re- be present (being dragged along the ground) are absent. Both sponses to the PSAs as scary, creepy or sad: of these effects serve to emphasize the sounds that are both louder than normal and/or close-miked. Most importantly, “Well I think the majority of the adds [sic] effectiveness the silence and distortion are juxtaposed with clear, close- come from the fact that they’re meant to scare you, disturb- miked sounds of her bones cracking as her body is forced ing imagery and scenarios that are meant to make you feel into contortions. As with “On Your Child’s Life,” the scene is uncomfortable and frightened. The adds [sic] meaning is saturated with reverberation. A long reverb tail of nearly two to scare you into realising the dangers of the world and to full seconds accompanies a door slamming shut behind her pay attention to them. At least I think that’s what they’re at the start, emphasizing the sound and telling the audience meant to do.” that the door has firmly closed and there is no turning back. Here, the unnatural reverberation on her vocalizations (cries “No offense but number 7 [Sarah’s Story]. Got me scared and mumbles) has the effect of putting us in her head, placing looked like some exorcist shit. I know it was a [sic] ad for us in Sarah’s space and thus encouraging empathy. a serious disease. But still. Creeped me out.” “Break the Cycle,” about child abuse, repeats ever more “These commercials made my heart ache and damn near rapidly a sequence of the consequences of abuse: A chaotic made me cry.” street scene where a teenage girl is robbing someone, the girl being shut in jail, at home being smacked by her father and In other words, most comments referred specifically to called worthless, being made fun of in school for not being the strength of the emotional manipulation of the audience. able to read, and injecting drugs. As with the other PSAs Although there are 10 PSAs in the collection, due to space described above, some sounds are exaggerated—notably her constraints, we focus on just three here, chosen at random: father smacking her on her head as he says, “You worthless “On Your Child’s Life” [14], “Sarah’s Story” [15] and “Break little cow,” the smack landing on “worth.” The smack by the the Cycle” [16]. Also, for the sake of brevity, we will not be father is by a significant margin the loudest sound in the discussing the music or voice in these ads but rather focusing commercial (about 8 dB louder than the average). The repeti- solely on sound effects. tion, as it continues, focuses aurally on the smack until the “On Your Child’s Life” is a fire safety advert featuring a smack is all that remains of what we hear. Even if we close boy of about seven playing with burnt toys in a house. Mi- our eyes, we cannot escape the violence. crophone distance and amplitude on the objects the boy in- The fact that we have some otherwise apparently loud teracts with are much louder and closer than natural: We sounds in the scene—screaming, a jail door slamming—and hear individual grains of dirt falling to the floor when he are then set up for a much louder smack on the head em- brushes them off a counter, placing us very intimately inside phasizes the strength of the smack as the most significant the scene. Tiny sounds like touching paper or the ticking of a element of the scene—indeed, it is clearly demarcated as the clock are exaggerated and closely miked, making for a hyper- cause of the actions that follow through its repetition. Per- real sensation. In one shot the boy stands in the kitchen and haps even more noticeable than the volume, however, is the we have a long shot camera angle combined with close micro- closer miking of the smack—we hear the smack with notice- phone, again sonically placing us very intimately within the able grain (overtones) and a reverb tail. The volume and mik- scene, even if visually the viewer is able to take in the entire ing of the smack place us very intimately within the scene, as environment. With the exception of the boy addressing the if it is we who are being smacked, not another person. Collins and Dockwray, Sonic Proxemics and the Art of Persuasion 55 Conu cl sions: Proxemics and Persuasion political communications, government advertising and elec- We have presented here a framework for the use and analysis tion campaigns to reveal underlying messages that work on of sonic proxemics in media, along with three PSAs that use an emotional level that may not be obvious in the visual or sonic proxemics to emphasize key themes and draw audi- verbal message. In particular, because we are rarely taught a ence focus. While our focus has been on public service an- language with which to unpack auditory aspects of commu- nouncements, this approach could easily be used to explore nication, it is especially important to understand how audio an auditory rhetoric in all media, including for instance party can be used as a rhetorical device to persuade audiences. References and R.L. Parrott, eds., Designing Health Messages: Approaches from Communication Theory and Public Health Practice (Thousand Oaks, 1 John Purcell, Dialogue Editing for Motion Pictures: A Guide to the CA: Sage, 1995) pp. 65–80. Invisible Art (New York: Focal Press, 2014) p. 203. 11 Annie Lang, “Involuntary Attention and Physiological Arousal 2 Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Evoked by Structural Features and Emotional Content in T.V. Com- & Company, Inc., 1966). mercials,” Communication Research, No. 17 (1990) pp. 275–299. 3 Stewart Ferguson and Sherry D. Ferguson, “Proxemics and Televi- 12 James P. Dillard and Eugenia Peck, “Affect and Persuasion: Emo- sion: The Politician’s Dilemma,”Canadian Journal of Communication tional Responses to Public Service Announcements,” Communica- 4, No. 4, 26–35 (1978). tion Research 27, No. 4, 461–495 (2000). 4 Wei Huang, Judith S. Olson and Gary M. Olson, “Camera Angle 13 HelloImAPizza, “Top 10 Most Effective British Adverts/Commer- Affects Dominance in Video-Mediated Communication,” CHI ’02 cials”: 56 Collins and Dockwray, Sonic Proxemics and the Art of Persuasion ABSTRACT damaged nuclear reactor, uses eight large tuning forks sus- forks tuning large eight reactor,nuclear uses damaged contractors or staff by entry first the before made corporated into into corporated piece theater My Island Mile 3 at Incident 1980s The to pursue of use the other forms of piezo materials. cartridges I used to amplify the bicycles. This in turn led me me to design and build rugged housings to protect the phono and in the concert hall. rhythms, poly- complex with Filled bicycles. their from sounds new explore they as performers into cyclists turns 1) (Fig. sion The Promenadeoutdoors hall. concert both the andin Ver- Concert Version, filled with The complex one. polyrhythms, this with functions connect music” “new with familiar not work—listeners sound abstract more for “table-setter” a as serves often it that observed have I music. new populist of bicycles. I always viewed this piece as a kind of political piece the 1970s, since Wo beginning with devices piezoelectric with working been have I Earl addressing climatechangeintheArctic. environmental worksonwateruseintheU.S.Southwest,and sites andatNaziconcentrationcamps,aswellborderlandsworks, recordings madeatseveralJapanese-AmericanandAleutinternment sites wherehumanrightsabuseshavetakenplace.Theseworksinclude sound(s) andimagesforprojectsengagingpoliticsplace,oftenat The authordiscussestheconceptshehasdevelopedwhilegathering Sounds, Images,PoliticsandPlace ©2015 ISAST at theauthor’s linkfoundat r i k : The 1970 The : h Half Lives/Nuclear WasteLives/Nuclear Half Incident at 3 Mile Island Mile 3 at Incident a Travelon Gamelon d T Gam also provided the impetus for e L s r m a n (1978) (1978) for amplified [2007] [Fig. 2]), 2]), [Fig. [2007] (1980) (later in- (later (1980) into the the into and sounds possible inperformance. range wide oftimbrematerials piezothe byme revealingto with work my of core technical the solidified pieces Both continuesissues.havesafety obvious tonuclear thatenergy is it performance, and control in to hard very are forks The half-lives. nuclear of image sonic a creating lower, octaves to play back the tuning forks one octave lower and then two able was I rewinding, then tape, 1/4-in to performance live recording By radiation. as light laser the of resonance sees of resonance—one both hears the resonance of the forks and forms are energy nuclear field. and Atoms sound amplified the in shifts Doppler creates wires harpsichord the of ing resonant through this sonic network, and the constant twist- to fork and reflects aroundthe space. The forks are uniquely disks. Laser light shining on the tuning forks jumps from fork frompended harpsichord thin wires attached to eight piezo that the for devices piezo with worked first I When Series Transducer reaction to the accepted norm where 16mm films were never a ofmaterials. Myvariety also was working wide Super8 in The blank)? the world sound like if my eardrum were made of (fill inthe leaves,explorequestion:cordto Whatandgrass, the would with along these, as many such using materials films sound my began I videotape. and touch amplified $1, $5 and $10 bills, a creditcard, 16mmfilm to encouraged were viewers Installation rubbing. mesh the hear could one screens, through blew wind As stallations. bronze window screens and more as sounding objects in in- brass/ film, of strips cards, credit used I loud. become jects ob- sound quiet Small, scales. sonic and visual both with play to me allow microscope—piezos microphonetorelate might waysame one as the in field ofrecording with piezos process my of think to began I Conceptually, hearing. our of threshold the piezos below sounds record to recordings use field in to began I result a As road. the in bumps and such as the the pitch of spokes, the sounds of brakes and chains, devices released an array of sounds from the bicycles, Transducer naturesonic a exploredthe of films LEONARDO MUSICJOURNAL, V and WYSIWYH and TransducerSeries ol. 25,pp. 57–62,2015 , I found I Gam , T of 56 Super 8 Super 56 of 57 Fig. 1. Premiere performance of the Promenade Version of Travelon Gamelon for amplified bicycles and riders at University of Massachusetts–Boston, May 1978. The Promenade was followed by a performance of the Concert Version. (Photo © Richard Lerman) supposed to show a microphone on film (at a later point I cal demonstration I recorded in downtown Santiago. Higuchi began to refer to the process as WYSIWYH: What You See also documented the hundreds of names of the Disappeared Is What You Hear). I also noted at the time that magnetic- on seven large panels in the installation. stripe Super 8 film had better frequency response than 16mm optical tracks. The 1990s Threading History Los Desaparecidos Higuchi and I based our collaborative work Threading His- In 1987, I received a Guggenheim Fellowship to support a tory: the Japanese American Experience (1994) on a 1991 TV recording trip to South America. The trip was inspired in part news story of Japanese-American veterans receiving an by my family history: Part of my family had left Poland in the award at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Israel, for late 1840s and traveled around the Horn to Los Angeles, then their part in liberating Dachau. We planned the collabora- continued north, first to Fresno and then on to San Francisco tion to consist of an installation by Higuchi along with my and Oakland. However, in 1987 border skirmishes between sound/video. At Dachau, I recorded video and attached piezo Argentina and Chile made travel to Cape Horn impossible. disks to the extant barbed wire and tall trees (representing Even so, I made 14 Super 8 sound films in Argentina and the past). The sound also contained voices of visitors, wind, Peru, along with numerous audio recordings. After seeing a tree branches scraping the barbed wire, passing cars heard show in Boston of arpilleras (politically charged tapestries), through the barbed wire and footsteps (representing the entitled “Fabrics of Life,” made by women in Chile protest- present). The sounds were intercut with audio/video [1] from ing the Pinochet regime, Mona Higuchi and I traveled to Manzanar, an internment camp near Mount Whitney, and Santiago in June 1989 to work on a project for Amnesty Inter- from Tule Lake, a second camp near Mount Shasta. I gath- national. I gathered hours of audio and video at the Fedefam ered audio at these sites from extant building foundations, Conference (Federación Latinoamericana de Asociaciones plants, fences, an apple tree planted by the internees and gone de Familiares de Detenidos-Desaparecidos). Driving south- to seed and more. As Manzanar is near the mountains, the east from Santiago, near the border with Argentina, and just camp’s strong wind was an everyday experience for the in- before the village of El Volcán, we saw a herd of goats wan- ternees; to capture it I constructed site-specific wind harps. dering near a fence high above the Rio Yeso. I attached piezos Manzanar and Dachau both have iconic guard stations, still to this fence and recorded audio and video as the goats dis- in place, with strong visual presences. The personal stories appeared from view. This sound became an important part of internees and their families were the inspiration for Higu- of Los Desaparecidos, an installation with video that we cre- chi’s installation, consisting of 1,000 suspended needles (the ated the following month for the 1987 Amnesty International internees stitched belts for their soldiers with 1,000 stitches Conference in Chicago. The piezo picked up the sound of the for courage in battle), and 1,000 small shells gathered at Tule river below, the wind on the fence and an occasional goat Lake, glued atop 1,000 thin dowels installed on a wooden bell. For me, the recording layered the present with the past, platform along with two video monitors. The work under- amplifying the sense of disappearances that were occurring scored the fact that even as Japanese-American soldiers were in Chile. Other images came from amplified grass blowing in liberating Dachau during World War II, their own families the wind (which sounded like whispering) and from a politi- were interned back home in the United States. 58 Lerman, Sounds, Images, Politics and Place Recordings in Lodz and at Auschwitz was roughly 23 ft wide × 8 ft high. Video from the fences [3] Recording in the Jewish Cemetery in Lodz, Poland, in 1993, I was projected onto the map on its top right side. In front of gathered sound from the headstones, trees and wind. I buried the map, I suspended a coil of dried and spliced bougainvil- some of the recordings in the cemetery, which had recently lea about 20 ft long × 3 ft in diameter. Bougainvillea thorns been looted. I found this trip extremely difficult emotion- are very sharp, and the resulting coil resembled razor wire. ally. Later, in 1997, during the Sound Art Festival in Krakow, I made the coil into a functional loudspeaker that pushed Poland, I traveled to Auschwitz on a windy, rainy, cold morn- sounds from the fences into three piezo disks inserted into ing. I chose to record from old fences surrounding the camp slits in the coil. Video of the fences came from four different but only gathered audio there [2]; the sound of the wind and types of border areas: (1) large urban, (2) small urban, (3) rain on the fences continues to give this piece a strong feel- countryside and (4) a very remote area with no fences at all. ing of place. The fences provided an amazing array of sound: dogs bark- ing, cars, voices, wind, and wind on metal. At times I used the 2000—2015 camera to peer through holes cut in the iron fence for a view Relocation Alaska: 1942–45 of Mexico. Even with the presence of heavy metal fences, the border remains porous, which is revealed sonically in Relocation Alaska: 1942–45 (2004) (Fig. 3), another collabora- the piece. In Camino del Diablo, the area with no fences, tion with Higuchi, was based on the World War II internment I recorded wind over cactus and ocotillo thorns, capturing of the Unangan people (Aleuts), who were taken from their the desolation of the remote desert in southwest Arizona. homes on the Aleutian chain and relocated to deplorable More persons perish attempting to cross the border here than camps in southeastern Alaska. I made recordings for this in any other area in the United States. In 2011, I expanded piece at three locations in Alaska. At Funter Bay, near Juneau, the piece to a performance version by recording the fence I recorded from the walls and beams of a former goldmine that extends into the Pacific Ocean to separate Tijuana from camp that had housed internees, and also in the old Rus- sian Orthodox cemetery, using wind harps being plucked by rainfall. The internment camps in southeastern Alaska were in dense, dark rainforests, completely foreign landscapes to the internees—in their homeland in northern Alaska, along the Aleutian chain, there are no trees due to the strong winds and climate. Around Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island, I gathered sound from a lone mountain iris in the rain and snow (for me, an image of resilience), tall grass, wild orchids and wind. At the third location, on St. Paul, one of the Pribilof Islands, I recorded sound and video of wild celery at a Rus- sian Orthodox shrine, thousands of fur seals, bird cliffs, and a whalebone support found in a former hunting barabara (a house of driftwood, whalebone and sod) dug deep into the tundra. The installation included a map of the islands, curv- ing 26 feet in the gallery at the Phoenix Public Library. Sus- pended above the maps, floating like a cloud, were 900 thin vellum strips with the names of the internees. Sounds from the three video pieces intermixed in the space. We chose this gallery because of its ship-like architecture and to encourage further research by installation visitors who were unaware of this historical event. For me, all the work discussed here from Los Desaparecidos to Relocation touch upon the fragility of the rule of law. Fences/Borders—USA/Mexico The U.S.–Mexico border projects a strong geopolitical pres- ence. One cannot live in the region and not be aware of or affected by borderlands issues. In 1997, I began recording border fences, which gave rise to a number of audio/video pieces, performances and installations. In 2006, Higuchi and I were invited to install Fences/Borders—USA/Mexico at the Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg, Sweden, for Fig. 2. Richard Lerman, Incident at Three Mile Island (1980), incorporated their exhibition Trafficking (Fig. 4). Higuchi created a map into Half Lives/Nuclear Waste installation/performance, the Ice House, of the U.S.–Mexico border for the wall of the gallery that Phoenix, AZ, 2007. (© Richard Lerman. Photo © Ty Beal.) Lerman, Sounds, Images, Politics and Place 59 Fig. 3. Mona Higuchi and Richard Lerman, Relocation Alaska: 1942–45, installation, Phoenix Public Library, March 2005. (© Mona Higuchi and Richard Lerman) The installation included 900 vellum strips suspended above USGS maps of the Aleutian chain curved in an arc 24 ft long. Video monitors played site recordings from the Aleutian Islands and a former relocation site in southeast Alaska. Standing on a birch platform were 300 willow branches. (© Mona Higuchi and Richard Lerman. Photo © Brandon Sullivan.) Fig. 4. Richard Lerman and Mona Higuchi, Fences/Borders–USA/Mexico, installation (map of the U.S.–Mexico border [23 ft × 8 ft] from 46 USGS satellite images and GIS data, video, audio, dried spliced bougainvillea, electronics), Museum of World Culture, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2006–2008. (© Mona Higuchi and Richard Lerman. Photo © Richard Lerman) California. Ironically, this fence, along with new Homeland under the right conditions. As a result I was able to record a Security regulations, now makes it impossible for persons moth alighting on grass in a strong wind [5]. One can hear from the U.S. side to visit the Mexico–U.S. Friendship Cen- the moth moving on the stem as the wind swirls through ter. Border agents demanded that I move 10 meters away the tundra. from the fence about 5 minutes after I had arrived and affixed In March 2015, we returned to the Kilpisjärvi station on transducers to it. another Finnish Bioart Society residency. I was thoroughly engaged in recording snow, wind and breaking ice using Death Valley Cycle rods, trees and a hydrophone. The working title for this From 2004 to 2010, I made many trips to Death Valley for project is Arctic Transitions. I have been astonished by the my Death Valley Cycle pieces. Along the way, I recorded Lake range of sounds/frequencies gathered from different ice pack Mead’s falling water levels at Hoover Dam. In 2009, I installed formations, especially at a site on the border between Finland Hoover: Water | Power for an exhibition on sustainability at and Sweden where two rivers, the Muonio and the Etuväyla, the Arizona State University Art Museum (Fig. 5). Hoover merge. Although the Arctic does not have an ozone hole, it Dam is surrounded by rocky desert, and I recorded sounds is clear that climate has been affecting the thick Arctic ice from the dam and from brittlebush, ocotillo and creosote. A pack. So, another image I am now working with is the “Age dam is a wall of water—to represent it I arranged 25 feet of of Carbon.” We have all entered that age. plastic water bottles to create a graph of the levels of water at the dam from 1935 to 2009 [4]. I draped wire from the oco- Conl c usion tillo towers to carry sound to two loudspeakers and to dried My work continues to be about place, and recording it is al- brittlebush plants hanging from the ceiling. The brittlebushes ways a kind of improvisation. As I record, I must concentrate were driven by piezos to behave as loudspeakers. All this on the duality of the sonic and the visual in order to capture required a series of power supplies, transformers and wires, both. I have become aware of an interplay between sound and completing the image of a dam. video camera—specifically, the nature of [macro] [close-up] Kilpisjärvi and Arctic Transitions [LOUD piezo] contrasting with [micro] [wide angle] [soft piezo] [soft omni-mic]. Working within these parameters In October 2014, as an artist in residence at the Kilpisjärvi helps me to define sound/place/context. For me, sound Biological Research Station north of the Arctic Circle in Fin- art remains the interplay between the sonic and the visual, land, I was hoping to record the sound of plants and lakes/ whether a work be politically themed or abstract. streams freezing. It did not really get cold enough to do this, Henry Cowell states in his great book New Musical Re- although I did make a recording in a river by plunging thin sources: carbon fiber rods into a riverbed at Pikku Malla. As water slowly froze around the rod, I could hear its sound, along Natural sounds, such as the wind playing through trees with harmonics being generated by the wind bowing the or grasses, or whistling in the chimney, or the sound of carbon fiber rod (Fig. 5). Stiff materials, such as carbon fiber the sea, or thunder, all make use of sliding tones. It is not rods, branches and stems, behave as single-ended strings impossible that such tones may be made the foundation of Fig. 5. Richard Lerman, Hoover: Water | Power, installation (700 water bottles, ink, ocotillo, brittle bush, video, audio and electronics), Arizona State University Art Museum, 2009–2010. (© Richard Lerman. Photo © Lekha Waitoller.) Lerman, Sounds, Images, Politics and Place 61 an art of composition by some composer who would reverse the programmatic concept, such as expounded by Rich- ard Strauss. Instead of trying to imitate the sounds of nature by using musical scales, which are based on steady pitches hardly to be found in nature, such a composer would build perhaps abstract music out of sounds of the same category as natural sound—that is, sliding pitches—not with the idea of trying to imitate nature, but a new tonal foundation [6]. I know that when I read this book in 1960 I did not compre- hend Cowell’s statement. Now I Fig. 6. Richard Lerman, bi-morph piezo. The author has used more than 100 different types of piezo disks, such as am sure that I have arrived at a this one, in his work in the field over the years. (Photo: © Richard Lerman) similar way of hearing/listening, and I have incorporated it with my understanding of sound art and images/content. It is my hope that listeners and/or view- −14° Celsius, with driving snow/wind.) I believe that com- ers (and sometimes listeners only) will gain such curiosity or munication and process remain more important than captur- insight from my work to fuel their own investigations. I also ing the best-quality sound. Since I must drag my own gear hope they gain a sense of the ways in which I listen to and around, weight of equipment is a necessary consideration. view the world. I continue to think of my work as “extended Using a parametric EQ, it is possible to find the specific location recording,” gathering the sound and soul of a place. metallic resonance of each piezo disk and filter out its fre- quency to get rid of the sometimes metallic quality of certain Tencalch i Notes: Working with Piezo Disks sources. I have also come across some disks with very thin I have used more than 100 different types of piezo disks and metal sandwiched between two layers of ceramic. These are materials in my work over many years. I spend much time more “transparent” in their sound quality but very hard to soldering and repairing transducers that have been damaged solder (see Fig. 6). in the field. Generally, thinner, larger ones have better low- Piezos are very Hi-Z (high-impedance) devices and they frequency response. perform better with a Hi-Z preamp. Readers will find several At times I will run a piezo disk directly into a video camera “how to” links, along with sound samples from piezos used without using a better, self-made preamp. (Working in the in the field, at my site, References and Notes 6 Henry Cowell, New Musical Resources (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1930) p. 20. 1 Video of the Manzanar/Dachau/Alaska pieces is available at 62 Lerman, Sounds, Images, Politics and Place ABSTRACT that occur in the physical realm (rather than in the digital). the in (ratherthan physicalrealm the in thatoccur off of unwantedsonic byproducts ofthe technological world feed to here, discuss I which ensemble, noise mechatronic a created I music, glitch digital contemporary of works by “into an aesthetic construct, as primary content” [4]. Inspired integratedare describes, HaingeGreg as developments, cal instances, some undesired sonic by-products of technologi- these Nicolai’s all Carsten In to laptop-producedglitch. [3] players CD modified Collins’s Nicolas and CDs damaged Tone’sYasunao to turntables with experiments Marclay’s Christian from itself, music glitch oftransformation the in succinctly observed be can machines”[2] multiplicationof “the and music” of evolution “the between connection the Russolo’s musicart. ofsoundandaries regardwithclaim to bound- the push and territories sonic explorenew to order in day the of technologies available the of abreast keeping now, been century have a than morefor sound, of ganizers or- music, glitch of laptop-producers current to machines dirty, detritus-driven sound” [1]. From Russolo and his noise Kelly, Caleb “combined a with digital worldclean the of the musical of sound with industrial noise, glitchthen music, according world to pure the impregnated Russolo Luigi If of bothdesignandideology. sound-sculptures employaBrutalist“anti-beauty”approachinterms theensembleisfollowedbyadiscussionofhow forming visibly. instrumenttypes Abriefdescriptionofthethreedifferent the sculpturesinsteadcreateglitchesmechanically, physicallyand designed anddevelopedtorealizeglitchmusicoutsideofcomputers; introducesanensembleofmechatronicsound-sculptures This article Physical GlitchMusic ©2015 ISAST and other supplementary filesassociatedwiththisissueofLMJ. and othersupplementary foraudio,video mNPt8ov1bSA>. Seealso a r e i e h t i w D a l C . A e term “prepared” in reference to the electromechanical com- such as steel wires, cotton balls or cardboard boxes. Using the tronic component to actuate an external nonmusical object, noise-generating units, each of which incorporates a mecha- identicalof createseries artists a works, these their of jority ma- the In [7]. producednoisemechanically aestheticize to in the creation of a less conventionally “musical” sonic output able examples where mechatronic components are employed in mind, the installations of Zimoun and Pe Lang are remark- into the primary content of an aesthetic construct. With this subordinatetransformedfroma be and materialbyproduct this otherwise undesired noise can open a door to new sonic sound. the skipping CD or speaker distortion in the realm of digital of counterpart generated physically the is machines tronic mecha- the of noiseinbuilt the then work”musical[6], the ansignal undesirable noise that has attenuated. to be musical transmitting the into introduces simultaneously it sound, desirable a achieve to means the provides medium technological the while instruments, conventional of sions ver- mechatronic of cases in Therefore, sound. strument’s in- musical the of amplification or techniques dampening various either through overcome, be to needs and issue an raises components mechatronic the of noise actuation ent inher- the Here, string. guitar a plucking of action the in with perhaps a machine substituting for a human performer example, for capabilities, extended or automated,modified chatronic versions of conventional musical instruments, with output.In other words, such works perceived me-ascanbe musical certain a achieve to is goal instrumentswhose sical deterministic systems, inspired by some already existing mu- employ,ratus they worksarelarge rathernumberthese a of appa- specific the of Regardless [5]. increased significantly has systems these incorporate that music and art sound of A and robotics over the past few decades, the number of works Along with rapid developments in the fields of mechatronics P a h From the viewpoint of those interested in glitch, however, Accordingly, if “a glitch is that which betrays the fidelity of r y s n i c e l g Gli i e t LEONARDO MUSICJOURNAL, V d n a ch j A a y K a ol. 25,pp. 63–67,2015 p u r 63 ponents in the titles of their the sound. Rasper’s LED strip pieces (e.g. prepared motors), is driven by the same signal as these artists emblematically the solenoid. Therefore, every emphasize their unconven- noise pulse is reflected visu- tional approaches in the em- ally with an accompanying ployment of mechatronics, burst of light. in contrast to those works Although the dominant in which machines are used sonic output of Rasper is to mechanize a conventional caused by the contact be- musical instrument [8]. tween the spring steel and In an attempt to validate the disk, the solenoid’s actua- the idea of mechatronic tion noise and the buzzing of machines and their me- the motor are also compo- chanically produced noise as nents of the resulting sound. aesthetic elements, I designed Both of these were sources and developed a series of me- of inspiration for the design chatronic sound-sculptures. and construction of my suc- In my ensemble, the basic ceeding sound-sculptures. components of mechatronic Rippler’s sound-generating systems are removed from mechanism is based on am- the context in which they are plification of the solenoid’s tools that help run a machine actuation noise through a (or a musical instrument), thin sheet of steel [13]. I de- and their sound is perceived signed two models of the as a sheer unsolicited by- instrument. Both models are product (noise or glitch); in- composed of a steel sheet in a stead they are turned into a Fig. 1. Mo H. Zareei, Rasper, mechatronic sound-sculpture, electronics, clear acrylic frame: the steel medium for sonic expression. metal, plastic (transparent enclosure dimensions: 6 × 50 × 6 cm), 2013. sheet of the first model is This contextual transmuta- Sound is generated when a contact is made between the spring steel positioned vertically, in the (attached to the solenoid) and the rotating disk (mounted on the DC motor). tion is accomplished through (© Mo H. Zareei) second model it is positioned an apparatus that combines horizontally. The resulting mechatronic techniques direction of the actuation re- with microcontroller programming to regulate their noise lates to the orientation of the sheet. In the vertical model rhythmically and timbrally, thereby “musicalizing” them. As a single solenoid is attached to the sheet at the top; in the Jacques Attali argues, the only thing that all kinds of music horizontal model, two solenoids are attached, one at each have in common “is the principle of giving form to noise in end of the sheet (Fig. 2). When the signal is applied, the accordance with changing syntactic structures” [9]. solenoid causes the sheet to vibrate. The actuation noise of the solenoids is amplified through a series of pulses caused T i he No se Ensemble by the movements of the sheet. In both models, the top The noise ensemble is composed of 10 sound-sculptures of the frame holds a rectangular acrylic tube, enclosing a grouped in three different types: Rasper (×4), Rippler (×2) strip of cold white LEDs. As in the previous instruments, and Mutor (×4). Each type varies in terms of parts, mecha- light and sound are synchronous: whenever the sound- nisms and sonic quality. All three types are driven by the sculpture produces noise, there is an accompanying burst same custom-designed driver board and controlled using of light. microcontroller programming [10]. Lastly, Mutor [14] has no external actuated object, and Rasper [11], the first sound-sculpture in the series, is com- therefore its sonic focus is instead the noise of the mecha- posed of a DC motor attached to a disk, a piece of spring steel tronic component itself, i.e. the motor, which is housed in connected to a solenoid and an LED strip, all held together in a clear acrylic box with a pivoting door. While the primary a clear acrylic enclosure (Fig. 1). Rasper’s sound-generating source of sound here is the buzzing of the motor—the speed mechanism is somewhat inspired by the mechanism used of which can be controlled, creating variations in the buzzing in a number of Russolo’s noise intoners [12]: Russolo’s crank frequency and sound—a solenoid mounted on the pivoting has been replaced with a motor; the lever with a solenoid; door can open and close it, further coloring the sound by and the vibrating material, i.e. the metal string, has been re- varying the timbre and amplitude (Fig. 3). As in the other placed with spring steel. As the solenoid pushes out, the mo- sound-sculptures discussed, an LED panel mounted on the tor spins the disk. Sound is generated when the sharp edge of back of the box provides visual representation of the modu- the spring steel touches the rotating disk. Changes in speed lations in sound: As the solenoid pushes out and opens the of rotation result in changes in the timbre and frequency of door, the LED panel lights up the entire box. 64 Zareei with Carnegie and Kapur, Physical Glitch Music Regardless of their different sound-generating compo- designed the pieces so that every single aural event is high- nents and procedures, all of the sound-sculptures in the en- lighted in synchronous beams of light, which serves to tightly semble follow the same sense of direction in aesthetic, design couple the auditory and visual elements of the work. On the and ideology: that of a Brutalistic mindset. other hand, their entire sound-generating mechanisms and every constituent part are fully exposed in clear enclosures. T he Brutalist Approach In these transparent structures, DC motors and actuators, Brutalism (also known as New Brutalism) is a movement in normally hidden inside the black boxes of our machines, are architecture that, according to Reyner Banham, is defined by relocated to the foreground in a bare and reductionist style: three key features: memorability as an image, clear exhibition as found (Fig. 4). of the structure and valuation of the materials “as found” The essence of Brutalism, for the Smithsons, is in fact [15]. Brutalist buildings are often recognizable through their rooted in ethics rather than in aesthetics and style; however, austere geometries and repeated modules, as well as their for Banham, it is a mixture of both. In this ensemble, the monolithic look and full exposure of parts and materials. For Brutalist ethical influence has, with each subsequent sound- instance, Hunstanton School, designed by Alison and Peter sculpture, assumed a more central role. In Rasper, I have Smithson, an early example of Brutalist architecture, placed the mechatronic components as exposed as possible, in combination with other materials to serve purposes some- appears to be made of glass, brick, steel and concrete, and how extraneous to their inherent quality. In Rippler, I sim- is in fact made of glass, brick, steel, and concrete. Water plified the mechanism for the purpose of emphasizing one and electricity do not come out of unexplained holes in the of the mechatronic component’s intrinsic features, where in wall, but are delivered to the point of use by visible pipes Mutor, the mechatronic component appears, both visually and manifest conduits [16]. and sonically, in a direct and untreated way, as found. Correspondingly, the mechatronic sound-sculptures pre- The visual aesthetic of Brutalism, as Banham argues, de- sented here abide by these principles. While their primary livers an “anti-beauty in the classical aesthetic sense of the purpose is to generate sound, they do this in a physical man- word” [17]. Therefore, the association of glitch music with ner. Therefore, their bodily appearance assculpture is of great what is classified as “extra-musical” by a conventional de- importance and has been thoughtfully taken into account. marcation can be perceived as a sonic transcoding of the In order to further emphasize their visual attributes, I have anti-beauty Brutalist aesthetic. If Brutalist architecture Fig. 2. Mo H. Zareei, Rippler, mechatronic sound-sculpture in horizontal model, electronics, metal, plastic (transparent enclosure dimensions: 53 × 35 × 6 cm), 2014. Actuation of the solenoids causes the steel sheet to vibrate. (© Mo H. Zareei) Zareei with Carnegie and Kapur, Physical Glitch Music 65 Fig. 3. Mo H. Zareei, Mutor, mechatronic sound-sculpture, electronics, metal, plastic (transparent enclosure dimensions: 8 × 8 × 10 cm), 2014. The noise of the DC motor is modulated using a solenoid-actuated pivoting door. (© Mo H. Zareei) Fig. 4. Mo H. Zareei, Brutalist Noise Ensemble, series of mechatronic sound-sculptures: Rasper (×4), Rippler (×2) and Mutor (×4), 2013–-2014. (© Mo H. Zareei) structures its anti-beautiful raw material into spatially grid- a substantial number of works of digital glitch music. In this ded modules, the extra-musical material of Brutalist Noise way, the structural clarity of Brutalism is not only fully con- Ensemble (an audiovisual piece composed for the noise veyed in the visual aspect of the ensemble but also extends ensemble [18]) is temporally ordered through the use of to its audible structure, where the nondevelopmental and repetition and pulse-based, metric rhythmic patterns with repetition-based temporality of the sonic material emulates clear-cut on/off envelopes: a strategy employed by others in the block-like monolithism of Brutalist building [19]. 66 Zareei with Carnegie and Kapur, Physical Glitch Music Aeths eticization of the Brute Russolo invites the post-Industrial Revolution city-dwellers You are sitting in a cafe on a Tuesday afternoon. In the to “orchestrate together in [their] imagination the din of roll- background a pop record is playing. Suddenly the CD stut- ing shop shutters, . . . electrical plants and subways” [22], ters. You have listened to glitch music for quite a while now. the Brutalist mind, on the other front, “tries to face up to a Your reaction has changed. Instead of the usual frustrated mass-production society, and drag a rough poetry out of the response you lean back and enjoy the random loops and confused and powerful forces which are at work” [23]. With skips of the CD, finding it more beautiful in its simplicity this in mind, while “the experience of everyday life is increas- than the commercial hit from which it derives. You hear ingly mediated by a multitude of mechanically reproduced how well it goes with the cappuccino-maker’s noise, the sounds” [24], I present the mechatronic noise ensemble dis- cell phone ringing at another table and the chiming from cussed here as an effort to embrace the potential aesthetics of tablespoons on teacups and of forks on plates [20]. the noisy machines surrounding our urban technological life. In doing so, the work adheres to a Brutalist line of thought Fascinated by post-Industrial Revolution soundscapes, through valuation of the very physical existence of its con- Italian Futurist Russolo believed that “every manifesta- ventionally “anti-beauty” raw material, by expressing them tion of life is accompanied by noise” [21]. Thus, his Futurist in clear visual and sonic structures. manifesto, in addition to a call for expanding the realm of musical sound, was indeed an effort toward embodiment of The characteristic of noise is that of reminding us brutally of life. the modern industrial life in music. Interestingly enough, as —Luigi Russolo References and Notes 15 Reyner Banham, “The New Brutalism,”October 136 (2011) p. 28; first published in Architectural Review 118 (1955) pp. 354–61. 1 Caleb Kelly, Cracked Media: The Sound of Malfunction (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009) p. 8. 16 Banham [15] p. 22. 2 Luigi Russolo, The Art of Noises (New York: Pendragon Press, 1986) 17 Banham [15] p. 25. p. 24. 18 Video documentation of Brutalist Noise Ensemble available at 3 Stuart Caleb, “Damaged Sound: Glitching and Skipping Compact Zareei with Carnegie and Kapur, Physical Glitch Music 67 Baghdad Music Journal A Soldier’s Move toward Technology in Music W i l l i a m A . T h o m p s o n I V w i t h J e f f r e y A l b e r t The author was deployed to Iraq as a member of the U.S. Army T would inform my approach to music going forward, and even C National Guard in April 2004. He left his acoustic piano roots to this day. I embraced technology in music. R T and embraced electronic music as a way to stay involved with I do not recall many things that happened directly before music during his deployment. While deployed in Iraq, Thompson ABSA recorded and released a CD entitled Baghdad Music Journal (BMJ). deployment, such as how I became interested in making The soldier’s recording was made and released while he was electronic music. I was listening to a lot of music in which deployed to an active war zone and is a document of his experience. computers played a large role, especially that of bands like Describing his time in Iraq, he discusses how it has changed his Radiohead, Stereolab and Massive Attack. With my fattening musical practice. active Army pay, I quickly purchased a PowerBook G4 with maxed-out RAM, a 40-GB iPod, a Griffin voice recorder mic I joined the Army National Guard in 1999 as a way to help made for attaching to an iPod, Reason 2.5, Logic Express, an fund my education at the University of New Orleans, where Oxygen 8 MIDI controller keyboard and a device called a I studied jazz piano. In April 2004 my unit, the 256th Mecha- MIDISport that allowed a computer to communicate with nized Infantry Brigade Combat Team, was officially deployed a MIDI device via USB and without an audio interface. This to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. My job title was a significant move, considering that I had never owned in the army was that of a 97b or Counter Intelligence Agent. a computer in my life. In fact I am sure that I was the first Although I have always been interested in military matters, person in my family to buy a computer. I already had con- the army lifestyle was about as contrary to that of a jazz musi- siderable training in computers in various fields, much of cian and college student as possible. When I finally came to it from my Army training in Intel school after I enlisted in terms with the reality of my deployment, it was as if my life 1999. With this new gear, some books on digital music and flashed before my eyes. I was a piano major at the University pretty strong ambition, I had a new mission that was separate of New Orleans, and my instrument and music were my only from, but dependent on, my deployment to Iraq (Fig. 1). Even obsessions; they were my life. I was a “purist,” having no in- before I left for Iraq, I had decided that I would produce terest in playing any instrument other than acoustic piano. music to reach an audience back home and elsewhere from Although I owned a keyboard out of necessity, I detested it. the combat theater of operations, and I would act almost as I knew that there were few and probably no pianos in Iraq, at a musical journalist, composing music that could give the least none with which I might come into contact. I saw this listener a taste of one soldier’s “boots-on-ground” experience as the potential death of my musical ambitions. It seemed in Iraq in 2004. too painful to go without my music obsession, so much so It was during my unit’s pre-deployment period, a 6-month that I thought I might not be able to return to music if I left training period designed to take National Guard members it. In the end, however, I found there was another way, which and transform them into active-duty, combat-ready soldiers, that I began cutting my teeth on this new musical format. Even in this early stage, my focus on music and my new mis- sion allowed me a certain type of escape. Soon all my free William A. Thompson IV (musician), P.O. Box 19694, New Orleans, LA 70179, U.S.A. Email: Audio and supplemental material related to this article can be found at: an imitation of acoustic instruments, but rather as one with 68 LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 25, pp. 68–72, 2015 ©2015 ISAST top. It was not the best-quality audio but it worked in my situation. I began recording often, not only speech (but never during in- terrogations) but also distant gunfire, hum- ming power generator trailers and anything else that caught my ear. The most interesting recordings to me remained human speech. A good example of my field recording from this time can be heard on the track entitled “Follow Our Orders.” It is a com- position based on a recorded conversation I had with an Iraqi man concerning his opinion of the war. The content of the con- versation was less important than the idea that all sound, including the human voice, contains melody, rhythm and implied har- mony. “Follow Our Orders” also contains a loop of Arabic speech repeated throughout the track. This sample was not recorded by me but was instead supplied to me by the U.S. Army on a CD on “How to Speak Ara- bic,” which was full of commands useful to soldiers. One of these commands is “follow our orders” in Arabic. I found myself in a whole new world of sound. Nightly after my work at the BIF Fig. 1. Will Thompson en route to Iraq. (Photo © William A. Thompson IV) was done, I escaped to a set of headphones and found amazing patterns in speech. It would eventually become part of Baghdad Music Journal. At seemed to me that Arabic speech and Arabic music were very this point I had not yet conceived of a CD release. Instead, much alike in their microtonal content. At this point I was I decided during my last “pre-deployment” stage in Kuwait pretty far down the rabbit hole of Arabic music. It consumed that this new music I was working on would best find an much of my listening time, something that I could not have audience via the Internet and that I would begin building imagined before the war, as I had cared only for American my own website once in Iraq. music and almost exclusively jazz. Much of the resulting mu- After we were settled in at Camp Victory and getting into sic I have composed, especially shortly after returning, is in- the routine of life there, music resurfaced in my daily life. For spired by the music of the Middle East in general and Iraq in the first half of my tour I worked at the Brigade Interrogation particular. Some of these influences include Oum Kalthoum, Facility or BIF. Every day I would conduct between two and Assyrian pop music of the 1970s, Maqam and readings from 12 interrogations along with my three-man team. Initially my the Koran. These influences found their way into BMJ live unit might capture anyone encountered on a mission—most performances once I returned, on pieces such as “Assyrian detainees were innocent of any crime or threat and were re- Folk Song” and “Khala.” leased. It was our job as interrogators to decide who walked Whenever someone from one culture uses the cultural re- and who got sent up the chain to the Division Interrogation sources of another culture to make art, issues can arise, espe- Facility. My approach to interrogation did not fit the stereo- cially when there is a war involved. My use of Iraqi musical type the general public applies to the word interrogation. and sonic material in my music is intended to show respect Being “the nice guy” worked for me. I would sit in the 5 × 5 for that culture. I do not feel that the music on the record standalone room with a detainee and my interpreter and feed is necessarily dark or derogatory; nor do I feel that all my him fruit and cigarettes. When detainees were obviously in- experiences in Iraq were bad. I greatly value the relationships nocent, I would usually ask questions about music, since I I developed with my fellow soldiers and also with a number was interested, and the detainee would rather smoke with me of Iraqi people. My use of speech patterns, music or prayer than go back to his cell. It was around this time that I became calls is both my own artistic reaction to the sounds around fascinated with human speech in recorded audio samples me at that time and an acknowledgment of the respect and and as an element of composition. I was aware that this had admiration I gained for many of the individual people I en- been done before by Steve Reich, as in Different Trains, as countered. well as by others. I had no real field recording gear (Fig. 2) During this time I also composed the album’s first track, and somehow ended up using my classic “click wheel” 40- “Post Election News.” I recorded an Iraqi radio broadcast of GB iPod with an attached third-party mic adaptor on the the news that President George W. Bush had been reelected. Thompson with Albert, Baghdad Music Journal 69 explained the concept behind Baghdad Music Journal (still not imagined as a CD) and presented information re- garding my personal history. At some point, through emails with a musical colleague and friend in Santa Fe, NM, named Carlos Santistevan, we em- barked on a quest to make Baghdad Music Journal a CD, with the ambition to release the disc while I was still in country. Now my mission had more purpose than ever. Approximately halfway through my deployment, some positions were shuf- fled around. Operation Iraqi Freedom was now called Operation Enduring Freedom. I was reassigned from the Fig. 2. Thompson’s barracks (home) studio while deployed in Iraq. BIF at Camp Victory and joined two (Photo © William A. Thompson IV) of my other home-unit buddies at a small Iraqi army base in the middle of Baghdad. We were working outside the This was recorded from a small Iraqi-made transistor radio. wire and doing what Counter Intel Agents are really trained I took the news report, added some radio static and arranged for: going out and meeting people, making connections and it. I then transcribed the pitches in the Iraqi newsperson’s friends and acquiring useful information on a tactical and voice and reproduced these pitches using software instru- strategic level. Our three-man team was made up of some of ments in Logic and Reason. I still have no idea what the the few Americans on the post. We wore modified uniforms specific content of the Arabic speech is but I had strong feel- with no names or rank insignias and grew large unkempt ings in regard to the election. (At the time, at least, I blamed beards (Fig. 3). This was an exciting period for me. We were Bush for my deployment and hoped another candidate would under very little command, seemingly, from higher-ups. bring us home.) This is still probably my favorite track on We did our work very well and spent the down time as if Baghdad Music Journal. we were home hanging with friends; however, instead of Wars are political by nature, but in my experience, the drinking beers at a local bar, we were sitting on the top of a soldiers fighting the war think less about the politics than 10-story building in the middle of Baghdad, laughing, while one might imagine. I understand the making of this music, still very much aware of the war around us. Often from the in that setting, to be a political act, but not an act of pushing rooftop we would hear small battles that we conjectured were a political agenda (I did not wish to use this music to put Iraqi-on-Iraqi skirmishes, given the fact that we could only forward a specific agenda at that time). The listener should hear the small arms fire of AK-47s, and no M-16s, which bring the political thought to the music. This music is not would have alerted us to American presence. On certain oc- meant to be a grand manifesto on war but simply the result casions, these fights would be accompanied by the sound of of one soldier’s specific experience. prayer calls through loudspeakers. We imagined that these Before my initial deployment, I had a big going-away party sounds of sung scripture were a signal for attack or perhaps at my apartment in New Orleans near the University of New a soundtrack for fighting. Orleans on Pasture Avenue. One of my best friends, Matthew I recorded sounds like these on many nights, and although Golombisky, was filling up my computer hard drive with they did not form a part of BMJ, I still use the samples dur- hours of great music during the party. All this music proved ing performance today. The samples I have from my time in to be important to me; however, one thing in particular stood Iraq are among my most prized possessions. They are sounds out. It was a recording he had made of himself practicing, that are unique to my own experience. One particular sample and it was full of great ideas. With this recording I was able might be my favorite of all. I recorded it while assigned to to collaborate, in a way, with my favorite bass player back the Iraqi Army base. The event was a large outdoor public home. “Golombisky” (track 4) is the result. Included in this address made by the then–prime minister of Iraq. I recorded track is one found sound, a recording of an odd-sounding the whole event, but the part that grabbed me was the Iraqi Army bathroom air conditioner. Army band’s performance of the Iraqi national anthem. Their It was during the first half of my tour that I built a website performance is a good example of the state of the Iraqi Army to communicate with the world and home about my experi- at the time. These soldiers were the exact same soldiers, for ence in Iraq. With the help of a tech-savvy friend and fellow the most part, who had once operated under Saddam Hus- soldier, along with a book I bought online, I managed to cre- sein. Their performance of probably their best-known tune ate a simple website. The site hosted mp3s as free downloads, sounded as though they had not played a note since 2003, 70 Thompson with Albert, Baghdad Music Journal when the U.S. invaded Iraq. It seemed that they knew their eral Patton in World War II and who experienced war from parts but were terribly out of tune and time. The result was the invasion of Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge. The for me similar to the famous Charles Ives representation of fourth movement is a song I wrote with lyrics about dealing two bands crossing paths in Three Places in New England. with war in hindsight paired with interviews I conducted I cherish my recording of the Iraqi Army band. I used this of a Vietnam War veteran and a Iraqi War veteran. These sample in my most recent composition, DD-214, a sound in- interviews took place on Wall Street during the Occupy Wall stallation I composed for New Orleans’s citywide biennial art Street movement. The fifth and final movement is composed festival, Prospect.3+. of recordings of mosque prayer calls I collected during my DD-214 draws its name from the nomenclature given to tour of duty in Iraq. Due to their microtonal nature, these are the Department of Defense document that is every service- some of the most difficult but beautiful vocal transcriptions member’s record of service. The sound piece DD-214, much I have undertaken. DD-214 premiered on 25 October 2014 like the document, chronicles war in hindsight and seeks as a sound installation at Tulane University in New Orleans to express the thoughts, conditions and inner lives of com- as a part of Prospect.3+ [1]. This piece is also now available bat veterans of all wars. Similar to Baghdad Music Journal, online at Thompson with Albert, Baghdad Music Journal 71 Fig. 4. Thompson performing with his electronic rig at the Mudlark in New Orleans, 2013. (Photo © William A. Thompson IV) I believe has not been done before: recorded music (not a In reality I have found that the “best” and the “worst” are in score) during combat; all the sounds were captured in that essence the same thing. Through experience I have found space and cannot be separated from my time there. The re- that the wider my spectrum of perceived darkness is opened, sulting music provides a view of a soldier’s experience in a the more the spectrum of light expands as well. As an artist new and unique way. I must draw from my experiences. I know my experiences as I often answer the unanswerable question that all veterans an artist-soldier are unique and for that, and for the ability to are asked—“What was that like?”—with the response that share them in a way through my music, I feel truly blessed. it was the best and worst thing that ever happened to me. Reference Will Thompson is a musician living in New Orleans. He 1 72 Thompson with Albert, Baghdad Music Journal ABSTRACT Jacques Rancière’s description of politics: with congruent is China’spractice of art politics sound the ciocultural, sensual and philosophical so- address to roles sociopolitical different utilizing works make instead and works their in terms propaganda using levels within [1]. China local various the concreteincreasinglyat become politics gender ronmental pollution, consumerism, sensual perceptions and things, especially as discourses on the manyglobal economy, mean envi- can political being century, 21st the in China ship, Tiananmen, Ai Weiwei, etc. However, in contemporary dis- course and avoid using political sensitive terms such from as Party, censor- themselves distance unconsciously or consciouslyMainland), the from those (especially however successof proletarian revolution. Most sound practitioners, the or freedom justice, e.g. ideals, greater for self-sacrifice revolutionaryfashionedheroism—acourageanddisplay of old- of form a (Western)as get attentionor to way easy an either as work their in political” “being see artists Chinese Many China. neoliberal in word dirty a been has Politics the sociopoliticalidentityofitscreator. aswell contexts inwhichtheworkisexhibitedandperformed, a soundworkinChinadependstogreatdegreeonthesociopolitical spiritual issues.Theauthorshowsthatthepoliticalstatementmadeby addresssociocultural,sensualand orparticipatory—to observant sociopoliticalroles—heroic, instead makeworksthatplaydifferent gobeyondthemereuseoflanguagepropagandaand artists Chinesesound increasingly concreteatlocallevels.Contemporary pollution, consumerism,sensualperceptionsandgenderpoliticsbecome asdiscoursesontheglobaleconomy,particularly environmental China,“beingpolitical”canmeanmanythings, In 21st-century in Chinathe2 Considering thePoliticsofSoundArt ©2015 ISAST files associatedwiththisissueofLMJ. foraudio,videoandothersupplementary See a n g issues. To some extent, 1 st Century st simplified into dichotomies.rigid state’s andideology new music shouldideology not be over- students’protest However,of1989. relation the the between Square Tiananmen the to reference implied or direct with China, mainland in state’s arts the and music ofcensorship i the on focuses often discourse WesternMainstream media He Ten Years of Sound Art in China YorkNew pressconferencein exhibition 2013 the for Dajuin recalled an unpleasant encounter with the media at a Exhibition Art ciple set out by Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s, Hong Kong meansarily it would allowed be (or not) on Mainland. the China, and its exhibition in the United States does not neces- artist; his work generate multiple roles. reality,in discussion;textual artworkssound often play and of convenience the for categorization this use I ticipatory. par- and roles—heroic,different sociopolitical observant of New York Times reported: desired to report still appeared in the news. For example, the dimensions in the works exhibited, the “story” that the media tive political issues. Even after Yao clearly denied anypolitical forceto termined statementssensi- on artists fromChinese During During a symposium in connection with the ting forward arguments about [2]. them recognized as capable of designating these objects and put- subjects of commondecision, a to pertaining as andmon sphereparticular of experience, of objects posited as com- Due Due to the “one country, two systems” constitutional prin- HongKong–based a is Lo Edwin that noted be shouldIt memorate at killings the Tiananmen Square in1989 [3]. spooky audio-visual work about candlelight vigils to com- Lo’s “Mourn” from Edwin instance,For a said. is Shi 2011 social issues, though none have been banned in China, Mr. and political sensitive on touch pieces other the of Some Here, I approach the politics of China’s sound art in terms r o c in Shanghai in October 2013, curator Yao curator 2013, October in Shanghai in Mourn has never been exhibited in Mainland LEONARDO MUSICJOURNAL, V . Some journalists seemed de- ol. 25,pp. 73–78,2015 China Sound RPM: 73 sorship, very quickly caught both commercial and Western media attention. In neoliberal China, being rebellious within conceded de- grees is safe and sells. Deng Xiaoping’s neoliberal policy re- shaped the social milieu of post-Tiananmen China and gave rise to new political dimensions. Despite their cultural, tech- nical, historical and institutional differences, different genres of music were all mixed together and introduced as new or avant-garde to Chinese listeners through dakou CDs [5], the Internet and online radio programs. In the early 2000s, the underground rock musicians and critics who would later constitute the main forces in China’s sound art culture, in- cluding Yan Jun, Li Jianhong, the Raying Temple collective, Feng Hao, Zen Lu and Li Yangyang, shifted attention from the sociopolitical to the technical, materialistic and philo- sophical dimensions of sound. Most became disillusioned with revolutionary heroism, but what has nonetheless been inherited from the first-generation rockers is the condition of musician-as-public-intellectual. Sound artists (including experimental musicians) are influenced by Western experi- mental art, critical theory and contemporary philosophy (Foucault, Baudrillard, Deleuze, Virilio, etc.). They are savvy about critical discourses, which somewhat facilitates their Fig. 1. Zen Lu, Borderline, sound installation artwork proposal, creation of sound works that are observant and participatory. 2014. (© Zen Lu. Photo © Zen Lu.) Observant We should not hastily conclude that Chinese sound artists, and Macau can retain their own economic and political sys- especially those of younger generations, are apolitical simply tems, while the Mainland uses the socialist system. In addi- because they have told the public media that they are not tion, censorship systems vary significantly among the regions interested in politics. The fact is that the game of political of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and the Mainland. Thus, the resistance is changing and becoming multiscalar as technical economic and political conditions of each region affect the and intellectual milieus change. perception of the political nature of the sound works dis- Despite Yao Dajuin’s denial of a state-activist dichotomy in cussed here. the above-cited press conference, he does create sound work An actual censored sound work in Mainland China, which that is implicitly political. In the Sound Art China exhibi- may well fit into the rebellious-artist-versus-state-censorship tion (Shanghai, 2013), Yao’s sound installation Tank Listening dichotomy, is Ai Weiwei’s Nian (2010). Nian (reading) is a Shanghai (20 October–19 December) applies the concept of 3:40:53 audio recording consisting of thousands of readings the Panopticon in transforming a gigantic oil tank into a lis- by volunteers. Each volunteer reads out the name of a student tening space. The red-lit Panopticon space, according to Yao, killed in the 5•12 Wenchuan Earthquake on 12 May 2008. Five returns listening to its purest form, uninterrupted by visuals. thousand two hundred five students’ names were read 12,140 At the same time, while sitting in the piece’s semi-enclosed times in the piece. Nian commemorates the students’ deaths listening booths, created with plastic boards around the in- and expresses the artist’s anger over the jerrybuilt govern- terior edges of the tank, and listening to a field recording ment construction projects implicated in the disaster. Nian of Shanghai, one cannot help feeling exposed (although one has never been exhibited or circulated through public chan- cannot see people sitting in neighboring booths, one can be nels in Mainland China. seen listening by the people standing in the middle inside the Ai Weiwei is an unusual example, however, as his artworks tank). There is an uncomfortable feeling of listening privately often publicly confront the state. Going back to China’s rock but being watched in a public space. The work makes one music of the 1980s, we can say that the rock star Cui Jian and recognize the immanent visual and audio surveillance and his music played a similar heroic sociopolitical role [4]. In the central control permeating everyday city life in modern the 1980s, Cui Jian’s public performances found enormous society. However, while the work makes Shanghai audible resonance among music fans, artists and intellectuals. Dur- and social surveillance sensible, here the artist remains a dis- ing the Tiananmen Square students’ protest, Cui Jian went tant critical observer maintaining an ambiguous relationship to the square and sang “Nothing to My Name” to students to with his/her work. A critical observer often retains a certain express his spiritual support. For Cui Jian, rock music is an distance from the object of observation, unlike an artist-hero ideology rather than a musical form. Rock music was strictly who presents a clearly defined position and attitude. censored soon after Tiananmen and, as a result of the cen- The sound artist Yan Jun tells a story on his “RadioEn emy 74 Wang, Politics of Sound Art in China 016” program of June 2010 [6]. During a visitor’s talk at zhen-based sound artist Zen Lu proposed a multichannel UC Berkeley in 2011, Yan Jun played a field recording of sound installation called Borderline (2014). The work makes Tiananmen Square during the national day of mourning one aware of the electrified fences put up for border man- for the 2008 5•12 Wenchuan Earthquake. In the field record- agement by the Chinese government to separate Shenzhen ing, one hears waves of patriotic chanting: “China China and Hong Kong (Fig. 1). Four years after the founding of China” and “Jiayou [cheer up], Jiayou, Jiayou.” The affective the Shenzhen Special Economic Zones in 1979, 84.6 miles power of human sound and background noise is overwhelm- of 2.8-meter-high electrified fences were built to encircle a ing. After his talk, a visiting Chinese scholar, apparently ir- 327.5-×-327.5-km zone. People from the Mainland must ob- ritated, approached him and asked, “What do you want to tain a “Border Pass of the People’s Republic of China” to cross do with this? Why do avant-garde artists like you make such this border into Hong Kong. The fences contribute to the ambiguous work? What do you want to say?” Yan Jun did increasingly striking gap between the rich and the poor, as not have an immediate answer. In the radio program, he said well as spatial-identity–related discrimination. Borderline is he still does not have an answer and that the question stays interactive. When the audience makes enough noise, a mi- with him. crophone picks up the signal and activates sounds of gunfire. Also utilizing the affective power of field recordings, Shen- However, this work has not yet been actualized due to finan- cial difficulties. It is also difficult to find a venue for its exhibition on the Mainland because border issues are too politically sensitive to address in artworks. Prt a icipATory The performative and participatory have become major characteristics of China’s current sound artwork. To create the work Sing for Her (2013), Zheng Bo spent a signifi- cant amount of time interviewing Filipino domestic workers at their weekend gatherings. From Sol Pil- las, a Filipino domestic worker who lived in Hong Kong for 28 years, Zheng Bo discovered a love song that most Filipino workers in Hong Kong know. He organized the workers to perform the song and Fig. 2. Zheng Bo, Sing for Her, sound installation, Hanart Square, Hong Kong, 2013. (© Zheng Bo. Photo © Zheng Bo.) recorded the performance. Sing for Her consists of a gigantic iron speaker suspended in the mid- dle of the exhibition room (Fig. 2). On top of the speaker, a small screen plays the video recording of the per- formance. The audience is invited to stand in front of the speaker to sing along. The video keeps playing until the audience becomes quiet. If no one makes any sound, the video does not play. With Sing for Her, Zheng Bo successfully makes the audience affectively experience an- other culture, profession and class by singing along. He calls the work a “pedagogical encounter,” to dif- ferentiate it from the participatory art (a.k.a. people’s art) of Mao’s era, Fig. 3. Yan Jun, Noise Hypnotizing, sound installation, Shanghai, 2014. which Zheng Bo has criticized as (© Yan Jun. Photo © Yan Jun.) too violently enforced. Wang, Politics of Sound Art in China 75 result. The high-pitched noise does not have this effect on every par- ticipant, and many quickly remove their headphones. Noise is still not widely considered an acceptable “music” form, but instead is con- sidered to be a sonic attack. Conceptually, this work is a vari- ation of Yan’s sound work series Living Room Tour (2011–current). The protocol for Living Room Tour is simple: Anyone can invite the musician to his/her living room for a private concert. There is no invi- tation fee charged, but the artist’s transportation has to be paid for. Yan brings his feedback noise set and supplements it with whatever is available in the inviter’s house. The Fig. 4. Peter Ablinger and Winfried Ritsch, The Truth or: How to Teach the Piano Chinese, tour is an ongoing project and has sound installation, 10th Shanghai Biennale 2014. (Photo © Power Station of Art) been conducted in several cities, in- cluding Beijing (2011, 2014), Shang- hai (2012), and Montreal (2014) [7]. For Yan Jun, noise is liberation, al- though not everyone agrees. China’s sound art movement also encompasses works made by non- Chinese artists and exhibited in China. Berlin-based Peter Ablinger and Graz-based Winfried Ritsch created the sound work The Truth or: How to Teach the Piano Chinese for the 10th Shanghai Biennale 2014 (Fig. 4). It is a mechanized piano audiovisual installation that converts phonographic recordings (recorded human voices and field recordings) into music. The work is part of the Speaking Piano se- ries, in which Ablinger investigates phonorealism’s relation with pho- torealism. As a composer, Ablinger Fig. 5. Yan Jun and Yu Ji, Deep in the Cloud, sound performance, AM Space, performs as an observer of percep- Shanghai, 2013. (Photo © Wang Jing) tions of music, noise and speech. In The Truth or, Ablinger programs During the 10th Shanghai Biennale 2014, Yan Jun pre- the piano so that it musically pronounces the well-known sented the participatory installation Noise Hypnotizing Chinese propaganda phrase “seek truth from facts,” used by (Fig. 3). Yan arranged eight massage beds, each equipped both Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. The phrase nicely fits with headphones, on the third floor of the Power Station of into the biennale’s theme, “Social Factory.” Art, the state-run contemporary museum and home of the The 2014 Biennale theme addresses both the production Shanghai Biennale, by a window facing the Huangpu River. of the social and how “social facts” are constituted in the Most of the tracks played on the headphones come from case of modern China. A recurring point of reference is the Yan’s previous live performances; two were made expressly year 1978, acknowledged as a turning point in the recent his- for the exhibition. All of the tracks were created by the same tory of China’s modernity. This was the year in which Deng method: feedback noise generated manually by portable re- Xiaoping, who was to become China’s most influential leader corder and earphones. Once the noise is played in a loop, in the following decades, initiated his landmark socioeco- a hypnotic effect that puts listeners to sleep is expected to nomic Reform and Opening, reinvoking Mao Zedong’s 1938 76 Wang, Politics of Sound Art in China In general, the degree to which a sound work is considered to be political in China depends largely on the sociopolitical contexts in which it is exhibited and performed, as well as the sociopolitical identity of its creators. Even when the work is a pure ex- perimentation in sound and technology, the process of exhibition or performance, the nature of the exhibition space and the larger cultural-economic space endow additional meanings and significance to the work. The more abstract the sound, the easier it is for it to be discursively and symbolically ma- nipulated in subjective ways. Hr a monious Noise In my opinion, sound works that create a danger- ous, unbearable and immersive sonic presence are the most political and, at the same time, the most poetic. Recent examples include Yan Jun and Yu Ji’s collaborative project Deep in the Cloud (2013) (Fig. 5), and Collision of Harmonies (2014) by the well-known new media artist Zhang Peili [8] (Fig. 6). While Deep in the Cloud creates an immersive sonic world that makes every audience a breathing body vibrating with feedback and dust, Collision of Harmonies draws the audience into a conceptual and reflexive state in thinking about intricate rela- tions between harmony and noise. Fig. 6. Zhang Peili, Collision of Harmonies, sound installation, Boers Li Gallery, 2014. In Collision of Harmonies, when the installation’s (© Zhang Peili. Photo © Master Oriental Art Magazine.) two speakers are far apart, one hears women (from the right speaker) and men (from the left speaker) singing harmoniously. As the two speakers slowly exhortation to “seek truth from facts”—a practice meant to move closer together, a piercing feedback noise is generated separate accounts of objective reality from subjective imagi- and becomes increasingly unbearable, until fluorescent tubes nation, as the curatorial statement for the Biennale stated. suddenly light up. Piercing noise and blinding lights fill the Articulating an ideology-laden phrase at a loud volume, room. Then the two speakers move apart once again; noise imitating a stereotypical Chinese propaganda broadcast becomes harmony. Noise—“cosmic vibration” in Evens’s voice, Ablinger’s work invites criticism mostly targeted at term—is still an undesirable thing, but nonetheless an ideal the apparent orientalism in the work and the sonic pollu- state for sonic harmonizing [9]. Noise makes music possible. tion of his piece in relation to the other works in the same Over the last 14 years of development—from China’s first exhibition. The use of socialist propaganda symbols was a sound art exhibition Sound, curated by Li Zhenhua in 2000 strategy applied in political pop art of the early 1990s and in Beijing, to the most recent Shanghai Biennale 2014— 2000s, but only rarely has been used by contemporary Chi- sound art in China has finally stepped out from the shadow nese artists in recent years. Whether the work constitutes of “no sound art in China.” Now is the time for sound artists orientalism should be a question open for debate, but this is to push beyond their own boundaries to make more noise, to a good example of the importance of context in attributing a discover creative possibilities, and to connect sound to more political dimension to a sound work, even if the artist desires nerve endings in both the actual and virtual worlds [10]. to remain apolitical and conceptual. Acknowledgments References and Notes This paper was funded by MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Hu- 1 I am aware of the complicated identity politics among Taiwanese, manities and Social Sciences Project for Young Scholars 2013 (Project Hong Kongers and people from the Mainland. I will not expand No. 13YJCZH177); Department of Education of Zhejiang Province Re- on this issue here given space limitations. I use the term Chinese search Projects (Project No. Y201328877). here mostly as an ambiguous cultural identity rather than a national identity. I will not engage in exploring what “Chineseness” means in this article; this point definitely deserves fuller discussion elsewhere, however. Wang, Politics of Sound Art in China 77 2 Jacques Rancière, Aesthetics and Its Discontents, S. Corcoran, trans. 8 For more on Deep in the Cloud, see 78 Wang, Politics of Sound Art in China ABSTRACT bourgeois comfort of a St. Louis Symphony performance by the interrupted activists when or [3] speech public amplify to microphone” “human the innovated protesters Occupy when as such performances, aural metaphorsor sonic ploy em- that actions political explicitly more of composed be or advocating creative work in sound or music. Or, they may researching doing, of practices and forms various compass producing pleasure innovation” to triggering [2]. “All humanities: of uswould welldo to consider art’sand ripple fromarts effects, the of value civic the to regard with plified or rendered morepowerful. AsDoris Sommer asserts am- be to organization acts multipleenablessonic-political social collective overlap, while acts Myriad scales. reaching morefar-in and locally resonatethat act impacts that from fects as the various social, political-economic and ecological consider a sonic-political act at the center, with its ripple ef- collectives: and individuals of relations about thinking for metaphor useful a is time and space across waves sound of propagationThe technologies. electronic of impacts logical eco- the and consciousness, collective to efforts individual articulate thatdistribution and production music of means communicationandnetworks the possible,creativity make that feeling and time of modes and structures social the as lifecutssoundacrossactivist [1] Anin various realms, such might pursue. and outlinesculturalpoliticalaspirationsthatsonicactivists ways thatneoliberalisminflectsandconstrainscreativepractice, and soundculturesinthehistoricalpresent,critiquesvarious The authordiscussespoliticaldimensionsofelectronicmusic Cultivating ActivistLivesinSound ©2015 ISAST files associatedwiththisissueofLMJ. foraudio,videoandothersupplementary See a r s the subject of science is normatively white, Western and male Judeo-Christian narratives of creation and salvation and how with align discourses Westerntechnoscientific how shown has which science, of philosophy and history the in arship tory of synthesizers, for example, I draw upon feminist schol- in the present difficult to achieve. In my research on the his- change structural creativitymakeand technology music,of histories patriarchal entrenched deeply First, progression? organize collectively voiced to action[9]. calls ups and record labels with statistics and infographics and to marginalization of women on electronic music festival line- has launched important efforts to documentthe widespread sional opportunities and pay. The Female Pressure collective profes- in concomitantdisparities to discussed) artists and enrolled students both of terms (in classrooms technology and music in diversity racial and gender of lack the from persist, ago decades cultures sound and music electronic in existed that problems same the of some yet And [5–8]. universityclassroomstaughtcommunityin and workshops arehistories sound and composition,engineering audiosic mu- electronic that ways the changing are Mission Audio Women’sthe and initiative Thorpe’s Techne Suzanne and syllabi, and community-based projects such as Bonnie Jones PaulineOliveros’s on the question of gender. Books such as as such Books gender. of question the on made progressbeen contradiction.hasSome of full turesis cul- BITI sound and music electronic in present historical The Inh of people, all rather than only aprivileged few. province the expression as artistic of survival the for essary feminist, antiracist, anticapitalist political activisms are nec- that argue I time, same the power.At of by,relations lated modu- is and modulates, it that ways many the in political collectives in mind, with the assumption that art is inherently ficer [4]. Iwrite this essaywith artists, artseducators and arts of- police white a by Missouri,Ferguson, in killed teenager Black unarmed the Brown, Michael for requiem a singing What is behind this one-step-forward, two-steps-back two-steps-back one-step-forward, this behind is What a n g g t LEONARDO MUSICJOURNAL, V h e e are showing up on course Listeningon upDeep showing are H ist o r ical P r e s e n ol. 25,pp. 79–83,2015 t Pink Noises Pink and and 79 [10]. This alignment manifests in audio-technical discourses an operation of power [14]. In the context of institutions and when the male composer or audio technologist assumes a technological platforms that are oriented toward profit and kindred subject position to that of a creator/God—a seem- sustained by the production of inequalities, as Lorde pointed ingly natural inheritance from foundational, gendered and out, “our feelings were not meant to survive” [15]. So, to advo- imperialist creation myths in Western history and culture. cate art-making and arts education is to advocate the survival Race-based expectations operate in tandem with gendered of feelings, their radical and diverse expressions, and their assumptions about creative authority and technical skills, and proliferating translations into social action. with sexualized assumptions about bodies in performance. Overall, the very notion of who is legible as a “creator,” an “in- Citiur q ing Digital Cultures novator,” a “composer,” a “producer” or an “experimental mu- I want to unpack certain media rituals that have become fa- sician” in the present is up against longstanding mythologies miliar in the day-to-day work of many artists and cultural that articulate socially and culturally differentiated bodies producers at this moment—to cultivate what Cynthia Enloe and subjects to particular social roles and expectations [11]. has called a “feminist curiosity” that exposes and critiques Second, neoliberal forces are bearing down on artists and ideologies that support everyday norms [16]. I am especially arts organizations in strikingly difficult ways. Arts education interested in accounting for how technological platforms that and arts programming are profoundly underfunded. Argu- are presented as neutral or, at least, inevitable choices for ably more devastating, and harder to quantify, is the erosion artists and arts professionals are both problematic and not of creative spirit and capacity that occurs when freedom of the only available options. We are intimately familiar with artistic expression is relegated to the sphere of free-market implicit expectations that artists and arts organizations will economies and hitched to profit-minded notions of entrepre- brand and market themselves, fundraise for their projects neurialism. We need to meet and counter these trends with a by crowdfunding (tapping into their social networks) with sense of urgency in our local communities as well as through tools such as Kickstarter, and sell their work directly to the the strength of international networks. public—or, more commonly, distribute much of it for free through online platforms such as SoundCloud and YouTube. Su sTAIning Creativity These practices are not necessarily all bad; nonetheless, it is What conditions make it possible to do creative work in timely to reflect on the structural and political dimensions sound and music at this moment in the twenty-first century? of our complicity with these trends. “Artistic subjectivity and aesthetic labor . . . in the digital age” Web 2.0, the now-familiar structure of the World Wide [12] unfold in the long shadow of neoliberalism. This set of Web that emphasizes user-generated content and interactiv- values includes the privatization of public institutions and ity, is an economy that relies on the unpaid labor of users services, deregulated free-market competition, a generally who are also producers of content, as well as on the affective upward drift of resources to the privileged few, and increased labor of distributed social networks to “like,” “share,” com- individual responsibility for employment, health and over- ment on and otherwise hierarchize and circulate that con- all welfare. Public funding for the arts has been decimated, tent. For artists, for whom art-making likely already unfolds and jobs in affinity areas such as higher education are few in “spare time” outside other employment, this economy and ever more precarious. The draining of support for arts demands increasing time for acquiring and cultivating the education in public schools at all levels positions the arts as skills necessary to maintain an online presence and for do- a superfluous indulgence that cannot be accommodated in ing the continual work of scanning, making and uploading tough economic times, while a narrow focus on quantifi- media assets to serve a perceived need. To be sure, many able outcomes and STEM (science, technology, engineering of us have embraced this work as a welcome dimension of and mathematics) fields in higher education is deemed most our creative process, and we benefit from learning from one prudent. A 1977 essay by Audre Lorde is prophetic on this another via social media networks and from expanding the subject. Claiming poetry’s usefulness in accounting for Black audience for our work to new communities online. At the women’s lives within a Eurocentric, white-supremacist and same time, the clear, material beneficiaries of our time and patriarchal culture, Lorde wrote: “Poetry is not a luxury. It labor are large corporations such as Facebook and Google is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of that acquire rich troves of data and freely supplied content the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams from our use of their platforms. Another corollary of this toward survival and change, first made into language, then “prosumerism” or “produserism” (i.e. when users become into idea, then into more tangible action” [13]. Without di- producers of the content they consume) is that it partici- minishing the powerful specificity of Lorde’s intervention in pates in a larger economy that has rendered interconnected its original time and context, I argue for the clarion resonance occupations and public services obsolete over time. From of her words in relation to artistic and activist lives today— the museum guide who has been displaced by download- especially for those for whom creativity is an absolute lifeline able audio files, to the skilled graphic designer whose work for excavation of, and testimony to, the felt effects of racism, now seems too expensive if we can do a halfway decent job sexism, classism and other interlocking modes of oppression. ourselves, to the small record labels whose relevance has been The suppression of feelings—even sometimes their partial diminished amid the dominant online distribution networks, dilution into “like” and “share” gestures on social media—is neoliberal social organization tends to encourage and reward 80 Rodgers, Cultivating Activist Lives in Sound competition among individuals at the expense of a more ro- gies, practices and timeframes for producing work that are bust and egalitarian community structure [17]. in fact deeply in service of capitalism. To be clear, I am not A quality of inevitability makes the contours of digital cul- advocating for wholesale abandonment of social media and tures very hard to challenge. An example is the widespread other new technologies, but rather for critical consciousness enthusiasm for “freely available” Web content. Under what of their political dimensions and for the avid exploration and conditions might artists support offering content for free or invention of novel, better, community-based alternatives. pursue alternatives? On the one hand, knowledge sharing and open access to information are crucial educational and Colti l ec ve Alternatives political initiatives that we need to figure out how to do in The expansion of networks that make artists’ lives and work better ways. On the other, content creators need to be paid sustainable through the collective distribution of knowledge for their work and we need not groom future generations to and resources is the antithesis of an individual-centered, expect that creative labor will always be provided for free. competitive-market, entrepreneurial culture. What would Organizations such as Working Artists and the Greater happen if large, brave, brilliant groups of artists flatly refused Economy (W.A.G.E.), and Canadian Artists’ Representation/ to distribute their work freely through existing channels and Le Front des artistes canadiens (CARFAC) offer resources created new, collectively owned online distribution networks such as cumulative statistics on artistic labor that is done for and/or novel modes of, say, handcrafting or hand-wrapping free, as well as proposed rates of pay for various roles and sound and music objects, calling attention to this innovation tasks in the arts [18–19]. These are helpful starting points by sheer means of its countercultural stance? There is little to for artists negotiating pay for themselves and for curators lose in pursuing such alternatives: the value of digital music lobbying institutions about payment for visiting artists. We downloads to most independent artists is effectively nil, and need to push back on this expectation of free or low-paid fees for performances and exhibitions not much better. There creative labor each time we have an opportunity to do so, are certainly some who have begun to innovate in these ways. raising it for public debate and collective advocacy rather For example, the new wave of “boutique” synthesizer and ef- than letting compensation issues get buried within the realm fects-pedal designers represent a kind of reaction against the of individual negotiations. dominance of multinational corporations in mass-producing If artists must compete in a marketplace with a glut of electronic music instruments in the 1980s and 1990s. freely available online content, what are the implications for Artists might ask: How can we redistribute money to sup- the work that they will and will not make? Thet Shein Win port our friends and colleagues if none of us has any funding raises key concerns about this issue, asking: “If the [online] and no one wants to pay for music? It is worth examining marketplace [is] the hub” that determines the success of a what small amounts of money we might personally con- work—for example, by whether it “goes viral” (a phenom- tribute to the arts and where that money can best be spent, enon that we know is contingent on proprietary algorithms), and, if fundraising for a project, seek approaches that are is successfully crowdfunded or is shown to be viable by Web consistent with one’s politics. Josh MacPhee points out that analytics—“what projects will forever remain on the table Kickstarter, and its financial partner Amazon, take 10% off or in the studio?” [20] There are also temporal pressures on the top of funds raised from projects that meet their goals. creative output, given expectations that new content will There are also less well-quantified costs shared by artists and be continuously available. I joke that every time I log into their networks, of gifts donated as fundraising perks, pro- my Facebook account, it reprimands me that “Pink Noises motional expenses and hours of labor that are invested to fans haven’t heard from you in 14 days!” But art and criti- make campaigns successful [24]. Whenever possible, we can cal thought take time. The performance artist Penny Arcade be more mindful consumers in deciding where to invest even recently addressed this phenomenon, urging young artists very small sums in the arts, and to deliberately and directly not to succumb to external notions of “success,” but rather to support other artists [25]. A useful analogy can be made to “honor [their] own trajectory” and rededicate themselves to the local food movement: going to a farmers’ market rather the long “developmental arc” that constitutes an artistic life than a chain store, and other small changes of habit among and career [21]. The science fiction author Ursula Le Guin those with the means to make such choices, can make a big likewise has observed that now more than ever we need writ- difference over time if adopted on a widespread scale. Artists ers and artists “who can see alternatives to how we live now, might also organize music production collectives that pool and . . . who can remember freedom: poets, visionaries—the instruments and tools for sharing among the community. realists of a larger reality” [22]. My position (and provoca- Open-source software solutions are promising in this regard. tion) is that artists have an expansive mandate in the arenas Some of these approaches also offer ways to reduce electron- of aesthetics and politics to depict and bear witness to the ics waste, running counter to dominant ideologies of planned social, cultural, political and economic systems and times obsolescence and individual ownership of electronic devices. in which they are enmeshed—in Adrienne Rich’s words, “to be a voice of hunger, desire, discontent, passion, reminding A sPIRATIons and Actions us that the democratic project is never-ending” [23]. Art- As is the case with other forms of activism, an activist life ists’ capacity to fully inhabit this crucial social role can be in sound must be made and remade through adaptive and compromised if there is noncritical acceptance of technolo- renewable commitments to social justice. What might sonic Rodgers, Cultivating Activist Lives in Sound 81 activists work toward? It can help to name some values and This list is designed for ongoing revision and to motivate aspirations. I start with the following: artists to make their own. It emerges from my particular geo- political and social location, and it is not intended to be com- 1. That people have the resources and time to pursue prehensive, universal or prescriptive. While it has a utopic creative sonic or musical expression in ways that feel, it is also generative, like an instructional score: there are unrestricted by gender identity, race, ethnicity, are many possible ways to interpret it and turn the stated class position, sexuality, physical ability, age and aspirations into actions. A single project might zero in on other socially differentiating factors. This goal needs one area of the list very well: for example, Pauline Oliveros to be bolstered by a broad array of social services and collaborators’ Adaptive Use Musical Instruments project (e.g. access to education, employment, healthcare implements the goal of expanding access to music-making and family care), as well as through opposition to to people with physical disabilities [26]. Or, an artist’s entire mass incarceration and militarization. career or the mission of an organization might focus on one 2. That such unrestricted creative sonic expressions area, such as an ecologically minded composer’s ongoing foster: uses of sound to raise consciousness about environmental • diversity of individual expressions sustainability; a music educator’s lifelong project to teach • senses of community or belonging younger generations about art’s inherent values and mean- • recognition of differences without insistence ings; or an antipoverty nonprofit’s efforts to improve mate- on their resolution or appropriation by those in rial living conditions for many, which can increase capacity positions of power for creative expression among a wider range of community • shared commitments to eradicating socioeconomic members. Alternatively, a sonic activist might endeavor to inequalities do a small action in support of most or all of the above as- • consciousness of social and environmental pirations each day. For me, this list is a useful compass and interdependency practical guide, so that I can routinely ask myself: In what 3. That creative lives in sound are personally and ways does my music-making today address X? How does economically sustainable, through: my research further Y? If I’m not doing enough to support • collective organization and/or ownership of the Z, what needs to change? It reveals how there can indeed be means of music production and distribution many approaches to cultivating an activist life in sound— • societal recognition of art’s inherent cultural, many areas toward which we can direct our efforts—resulting economic and civic value in a proliferation of sonic-political acts that have local and 4. That detrimental environmental impacts resulting far-reaching ripple effects. from creative uses of electronics and audio tech nologies are minimized. Acknowledgments 5 Tara Rodgers, Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound (Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press, 2010). Thanks to conference organizers Angus Carlyle, Holly Ingleton and Cathy Lane, and to the attendees of the second “Sound::Gender:: 6 Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening: A Composer’s Practice (New York: Feminism::Activism” conference events, for their invitation and discus- iUniverse, 2005). sion of this work. 7 Techne: Modular Workshops in Music, Technology & Improvisation: 82 Rodgers, Cultivating Activist Lives in Sound vation Age: Aesthetic Labor, Artistic Subjectivity, and the Creative 22 Quoted in Rachel Arons, “ ‘We Will Need Writers who Can Remem- Industries,” Anthropology of Work Review 35, No. 1 (2014) p. 2. ber Freedom’: Ursula Le Guin and Last Night’s N.B.A.s,” New Yorker (20 November 2014): Rodgers, Cultivating Activist Lives in Sound 83 84 ABSTRACT happenings, a politically charged juncture for audio/video audio/video for juncture charged politically a happenings, halls ofhalls Institute the of Contemporary senseless. Arts reverberate the toParis,London latertraveling toJeunes in de Biennale Sixth the at Canada represented officially they lins, a theremin, clarinets, cooking pots and marbles. In 1969, vio- electric and kazoos amplified bass, and guitars electric instruments: own their modified had NSB 1967 By kazoos. 25-cent blowing and humming shouting, improvised they begun orchestrating had noise who in 1965. Withoutartists musical visual training, of group a were Curnoe, Greg and Exley, Boyle MurrayJohnFavro, Bill Leitch, Clement, John band members of NSB, Hugh McIntyre, Pattern,Art Archie hoc ad The installation.andsculpture performance, sound, sic theory, had engagedbeen with the intersection of music, bass player and student of mathematics, philosophy and mu- jazz Nauman,a Davis, California, Universityof the at days and the production of aporetic sound. Ever since his graduate were well met with the NSB’s interdisciplinary transgressions Nauman’sOntario. London, activities in intermedia 20/20, vited Bruce Nauman to exhibit at their home venue, Gallery in- (NSB) Band Spasm Nihilist the and Curnoe Greg nies, obtaining international recognition for their chaotic harmo- In 1969, after 4 years of skillfully producing noise and finally for London,Ontario(1969–1970) in BruceNauman’s Piece AudioVideo ofSense The Instrumentality L dispersed soundingbodies. communis, Nauman’s workproposesnewpoliticaltrajectoriesfor West CoastandinthestreetsofParis.Unhingingunitysensus London, Ontario,aworkexecutedsoonafterunrestontheAmerican a closeexaminationofBruceNauman’s AudioVideo Piecefor sense whilemorphingthehistoricalandphilosophicalrootsthrough The authorweavesthepoliticalbasisofauditionintomaking scholars ofNaumanhavepaidlittleattentiontothesoundingbody. time. However, focusingonvision,phenomenologyandsemiotics, critique emphasizingtheroleofbodyinrelationtospaceand Bruce Nauman’s andlinguistic aliterary installationshavelongserved EONARDO MUSICJOURNAL,Vol. 25,pp.84–88, 2015 University, Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel. Email: r A I space devoted to artworks and artworks to devoted space - H a y o n in its generation of its own echoes, and the other facing the the facing other the and echoes, generationownitsits of in one facing the outside, exposing the instrumentality of sense directions: two in act promptedto recording devices artists Portable structures. ethical and economic social, of cation fabri- in forms their imposing apparati technological with fostered distrust in symbolic ideologies and disillusionment that repression political of escalation an precipitated 1968 of uprisings the Paris, to campus Berkeley the From sense. ofexploration an and regulation, which inspired a ideological return to the perceiving to subject adhere to suspected were contraption new The common properties ofsense perception reflected by the sual and sonic content while recording processes in real time. vi- represented it mechanism; technological its in inherent possibilities new forth called camera video The [1]. Castelli Leo from 1968 in receivedhe which camera, video portable the with experimentations technology,begun Naumanhad . senses individual compartmentalizationof the by exposed sisted synthetic practice, and the instrumentality of sense was re- production sense that such senses, the ofredistribution novel a dictated spaces shared and inaccessible into rooms the of division The audible. faintly was space, confining its overflowingsoundtrack, the viewer,while the to accessible to a television monitor placed on the floor in asecond room on his hips. Thevideo footage ofthe vacant room was relayed room emanating the rhythmic sounds of his hands clapping sealed empty, an in recording sound looped a played and side its on oscillating camera surveillance a installed cally tacti- He mail. by Curnoe Greg by him to sent gallery, the constructed man Nau-1). (Fig. March1970 2 and February 11 between 20/20 Piece for London, Ontario, Stockhausen in 1968, a year before commencing nally performed semi- who Stockhausen, Karlheinz by events engaging yet unbearable of production the and Ball Hugo and Russolo Luigi of happenings cross-media and cacophoniesclashing the with resounded space dynamic The experimentation. Exploring the relation between the body,and perception the relationbetween the Exploring Originale in NYC in 1964. Nauman had met AudioVideo Piece i.e. the production of sensual sensual of production the techné,i.e. which which he would exhibit at Gallery using the floor plans plans of floor the using Audio Video ©2015 ISAST Fig. 1. Bruce Nauman, Audio Video Piece for London, Ontario, video camera, video monitor, videotape, player, chair, 1970. Nauman’s original installation of the piece at Forest City Gallery, photographed in 2011 (formerly Gallery 20/20) [18]. (© 2015 Bruce Nauman/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo © Adi Louria Hayon.) inside, plugging into the technologies of production by us- distribution was consistently interrupted in order to prevent ing instruments in an unruly manner that shifted percep- synthetic clarity while maintaining the discrete operation of tion and collective relations. From organized instrumentality the sorted senses and a return to the proximity of the visual to the dispersion of instruments, the writings of Marshall and the sonorous. McLuhan, Buckminster Fuller, Gregory Bateson and others The critique of the synthetic operation of common sense offered a fertile ground for expanding new media ecology lends itself to recent aesthetic theories that discern a return and the critique of broadcast media by artists, composers to the aesthetic in its original etymological meaning of ais and writers, published in activist journals such as Radical thesis, that is, sensation or perception by the senses. This re- Software, founded by Phyllis Gershuny and Beryl Korot. The turn, as we shall soon see, sets the limits of representation first issue of Radical Software centered on the orchestration against the technological operation of the senses. Far from of public opinion by television. Against the politics of set composing a novel contemporary discourse, the concepts of sense offered by television, Nauman proposed exploring the sensuous affect and common sense begin their movement relation between technological shared spaces and the sens- within the two main Greek schools of philosophy, which ing body. To the reign of visuality he opposed sound and postulated perception in relation to reason and the senses. hearing; transcendent networks of information he replaced In his dialogue Theaetetus, Plato proposes a conscious subject with the technological extensions of physical perception and that uses sensory perception under the reign of reason [3]. the production of sense. His turn to the sonorous developed Aristotle, on the other hand, advanced a perceptual power “the attitude involved in transforming normal activity into over and above the five senses, coordinating and monitoring a formal presentation . . . [through] a creative misreading or their singular capacities [4]. Aristotle called this perceptual a creative misunderstanding” [2]. He handed professional power sensus communis (common sense). In the Theaetetus, filming down to the amateur’s portable camera working as Plato’s Socrates clarifies the relations between knowledge and an extension of the sensing body. However, this democratic perception to prove that while perception relates to the work Louria-Hayon, Bruce Nauman’s Audio Video Piece for London, Ontario 85 of the singular senses, it is subjugated to the soul. For him, the the production of sense (logos), which results from the ra soul grasps and synthesizes common features obtained by the tio of sensual perception. The idea of the plurality of sense perceiving organic apparati residing in the body, which, in perception, which is inseparable from the physicality of sen- turn, results in knowledge. According to this idea, the unity sual organs, and their interactions are predicated on their of consciousness stands counter to the senses; the perceiving varying significance in relation to one another. While this soul is the proper subject of perception and does not need disengaged instrumentality demands considering the senses the corporeal senses. in separation, it draws upon the Thomistic and Aristotelian Contrary to Plato’s intelligible integration, Aristotle pro- concepts of ratio and sensus communis. From Aristotle, poses perception as preceding thought in time. For him, in- McLuhan drew the idea that the knowledge of our percep- tegration of a sense occurs within common sense, that is, tions rests in the common qualities uniting all the senses [8]. coordination of the senses is achieved perceptually in the However, McLuhan changed the direction of common sense, physiological body. Common sense is a higher perceptual now placed within the technological extensions outside the capacity of the soul that, while distinguished from the senses, subject. “As man succeeds in translating his central nervous objectifies perception by giving its content objective refer- system into electronic circuitry,” he wrote, ence and requires a physical organ in which to reside. The medical schools of Cnidus and Sicily maintained that this he stands on the threshold of outering his consciousness . . . central organ of awareness is the heart [5]. The school of Cos, [which] may be thought of as projection to the outside of following Plato, asserted that it resides in the brain [6]. The inner synesthesia, corresponding generally with the ancient significance of Aristotle’s physiology lies in maintaining the common sense . . . a mark of rationality [9]. tension of then-current research postulating the concrete From Thomas Aquinas, McLuhan drewratio as the under- embodiment of complex neurological and nervous systems lying proportion among the senses that produces rationality. activated within perception. Locating the integrated senses Aquinas furthermore asserted that achieving the proper ratio in some corporeal communality makes resonant the tension among the senses in fact produces beauty as well as pleasure between sense made immanently and sense imposed as tran- [10]. What is important to our understanding is the nature scendent to the body. From Plato to Descartes, we see the shared by rationality and technology, especially in relation to reign of thought over the body, placing common sense in the the discrete senses. “It is the ratio among our senses,” wrote head. The Kantian critique of sensus communis elaborated McLuhan, “which is violently disturbed by media technol- the Aristotelian shared sense, now externalized to a priori ogy. And any upset in our sense-ratios alters the matrix of universal judgment. “We must take sensus communis,” wrote thought and concept and value” [11]. To repair this matrix he Kant, proposed a performative response and change of ratio—his to mean the idea of a sense shared, i.e., a power to judge seminal turn to the sonorous and the haptic. He offered sonic that in reflecting takes account, in our thought, of everyone spaces and vibrating tactility as primary to perception: no else’s way of presenting, in order as it were to compare our longer distanced viewing but instead the perceiving sensuous own judgment with human reason in general [7]. body set in between—as in Nauman’s installation—the so- norous and the visual, in the vibrations of their limits. Here, The tension between the physicality of sensus communis one is impressed tactically, in between the senses. and its external capacities of knowledge and thought merits In this new distribution we are performatively obliged some consideration. It invites a provocation: What would be to reconstitute sense—to make sense by redistributing the achieved by forgetting thought, the soul, the juridical sub- senses from their habitual connective tissues: body, percep- ject? What if perception and the sensing instruments were tion and technology. Audio Video Piece experiments with the on the same level? How may the operation of each individual effect of the now externalized sensus communis. The latter sense organ, working in separation, become autonomous? leads to a shared consensus, or a shared sense. Nauman cri- Performative? And further, how may we think of common tiques this shared consensus by dividing the collective effect sense in such separation? Haunted by the corporeal Aristote- of the senses into discrete elements. The surveying camera, lian sensus communis, Nauman’s turn to the sonorous in the detached from the exhibition space, revealing the lack of evi- 1960s, at the time of Marshall McLuhan’s call for the primacy dence in the empty room via the monitor placed on the floor, of hearing and the production of sonic spaces predicated on and the rhythmical reverb, sounding the space between the tactile vibrations, is not accidental. McLuhan called us to concealed and shared rooms, together produce what Jacques reexamine the limits of perception, the peripheral senses, Rancière calls an anarchic space: a space that undoes the hi- subjugated to the violence of trained sensual experience. He erarchies constructed by the correspondence between the drew a direct correlation between the reign of visuality and articulate audible and the visible. Clear representation is the problems raised within the question concerning technol- contingent on the visible, writes Rancière, and ogy and critiqued the sway that technological environments have on the human senses. He considered technology and is opposed to the paradoxical space engendered by the media to be extensions of the human organic senses; how- art of sound vibration, that is, of de-spatialised material- ever, the forceful effects of technology result in displacement ity. . . . It is the contradictory union between . . . [the vi- of sensory perception. Media’s aptitude for augmenting the sual] stripped of sense-based form, and the art of sounds, visual regulates a hierarchical sensual regime constitutive of stripped of its meaning [12]. 86 Louria-Hayon, Bruce Nauman’s Audio Video Piece for London, Ontario Although an early work by Nauman, Audio Video Piece my epigons do the same trick, the result will be completely was not his first to transform the articulation of adequate the same . . . that is . . . My TV is NOT the expression of operation of technologies into aporetic processes. In 1969, my personality, but merely a “PHYSICAL MUSIC” [14]. Nauman created an installation opposing two sensual fron- Music’s physicality calls the visitor, the passerby, her body, tiers through spacing. Touch and Sound Walls positioned his body, to inhabit the limits of perception, to physically the visitor between the sonorous and the haptic. The vacant experience and generate the topologies reverberating in architectonic trace relayed on the monitor in Audio Video between the senses. In Nauman’s indeterminate score, the Piece displays the same settings for Bouncing in the Corner, production of sense and its distribution produce consensus a 1969 video work recording the sounds of Nauman’s body through exercising power, or what Rancière calls “the police” rebounding off of a corner of a room. However, in Audio [15]. For Rancière, the police are in charge of the social con- Video Piece, Nauman evacuates the scene; he metaphorically figuration of thepartage du sensible (division of the sensible); exchanges his body for a chair set in between the two segre- its sway perpetuates inequality dictated by the distribution gated sensual domains. of knowledge. Rancière’s partage simultaneously conveys In 1963 Nam June Paik had executed a similar critique in two almost contradictory meanings: The first is “to share, to his first solo exhibition, Exposition of Music. Electronic Tele have in common,” the second, “to divide, to share out” [16]. vision, staged at the Galerie Parnass, in a late-19th-century Nauman’s shared sense de-parts from cognizant coherency villa in Wuppertal, West Germany. (The title of Paik’s work while taking part in spatial communis. The political bearings is echoed in Nauman’s; however, Paik’s influence on Nauman of shared spaces predicated on division re-sound Nauman’s was far more pervasive.) During the late autumn of 1961, Paik sensuous separation: had participated in Stockhausen’s Originale, performed in Cologne. “After twelve performances,” recalled Paik in 1986, I guess one of the more important parts of a lot of the work “I started a new life. . . . I stocked my whole library except had to do with the difference between private space and those books on TV technique into storage and locked it up” public space. . . . So that one of the main things that I had [13]. For the next 2 years, Paik was dedicated to his legendary thought about was to deal with trying to find the edge, to secret investigations and experimentations with TV moni- enforce the tension between that sort of transformation, tors, which were eventually exhibited at Wuppertal. Paik between your space and having to share it, socially or what- divided the sound installations between the basement and ever [17]. the separate rooms of the upper floors. In a “garden room,” Considered within the evolution of the Aristotelian sensus he displayed multiple television sets on their side, front, communis, Nauman’s corporeal sense produces a dissensual top or bottom—all on the floor. However, unlike Nauman’s form of human perception that transgresses the mind’s ha- closed-circuit TV, Paik’s televisions broadcast live shows. bitual measures. This transgression is actualized when the These shows featured the distorted sounds and images of configuration and distribution of rules are reconfigured politicians reiterating their dictums while demarcating the by desensualizing the exclusive attribution of sense. The spectators’ role of passive restriction. By distorting and dis- departure of the senses and the separation of public space locating the sounds of screened images, Paik did not merely from private space hold sway over a dispersed yet shared mock their iconic halo convulsions but activated the view- space. For on the one hand, Nauman offers the praxis of ers’ uncertainty and physical contingency. Paik’s TVs aim to separation, while on the other, private space exists within activate the viewer’s physicality through sound. In “afterlude public space. Here, the edge, the place of transformation, is to the EXPOSITION of EXPERIMENTAL TELEVISION,” created by the private, the singular sense resounding with he wrote: its own limit; however, there is nothing above, under or My experimental TV is the first ART (?), in which the “per- around the edge. The private evacuates its own topos to take fect crime” is possible. . . . I had put just a diode into op- part in sharing a disjoined common space predicated on posite direction, and got a “waving” negative television. If disengagement. References and Notes 5 D.W. Hamlyn, “Koine Aisthesis,” The Monist 52, No. 2, 203–208 (1968). 1 Constance M. Lewallen, “A Rose Has No Teeth,” in Constance M. Lewallen, ed., A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s 6 Pavel Gregoric, Aristotle on the Common Sense (Oxford: Oxford (Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press, 2007) p. 88. Univ. Press, 2007) p. 5. 2 Chris Dercon, “Keep Taking It Apart: A Conversation with Bruce 7 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, Werner S. Pluhar, trans. (In- Nauman, 1986,” in Janet Kraynak, ed., Bruce Nauman’s Words (Cam- dianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1987) §40. bridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003) pp. 310–311. 3 Plato, Theaetetus, in John M. Cooper and D.S. Hutchinson, eds., 8 Daniel Heller-Roazen, The Inner Touch: Archeology of a Sensation Plato: The Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997) pp. 151d–e. (New York: Zone Books, 2009) p. 32. 4 Aristotle, On the Soul, in Jonathan Barnes, ed., The Complete Works 9 Marshall McLuhan and Bruce Powers, The Global Village: Transfor of Aristotle (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1984) Book III, pp. mations in World Life and Media in the 21st Century (Oxford: Oxford 425a–427. Univ. Press, 1989) p. 94. Louria-Hayon, Bruce Nauman’s Audio Video Piece for London, Ontario 87 10 Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy (Toronto: Univ. of To- 16 Eric Méchoulan, “On the Edges of Jacques Rancière,” SubStance 33, ronto Press, 1966) p. 107. No. 1, 3–4 (2004). 11 Marshall McLuhan, Report on Project in Understanding New Media 17 Michele de Angelus, “Interview with Bruce Nauman, May 27 and (Washington, D.C.: National Association of Educational Broadcast- 30, 1980,” in Janet Kraynak, ed., Please Pay Attention Please: Bruce ers, 1960) p. 9. Nauman’s Words, Writings and Interviews (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003) p. 278. 12 Jacques Rancière, “The Muses,” in Christine Van Assche, curator, Sonic Process: A New Geography of Sounds, exh. cat. (Barcelona: Mu- 18 Forest City Gallery is the current name of the former Gallery 20/20. seum d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2002) pp. 25–26. Thus, Fig. 1 shows Nauman’s installation at the original venue. 13 Nam June Paik, Beuys Vox 1961–1986, exh. cat. (Seoul: Gallery Hyun- dai and Gallery Won, 1989) p. 21. Manuscript received 2 January 2015. 14 Nam June Paik, “afterlude to the EXPOSITION of EXPERIMENTAL TELEVISION,” FLuxus cc five ThReE (Galerie Parnass: June 1964) p. 15. Adi Louria-Hayon is an assistant professor at the art his 15 Jacques Rancière, Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, Steven tory department in Tel Aviv University. Her current research Corcoran, ed. and trans. (London and New York: Continuum, 2010) focuses on the relations between art, philosophy, music and pp. 36–37. sound. 88 Louria-Hayon, Bruce Nauman’s Audio Video Piece for London, Ontario ABSTRACT exile. Artwork after artwork was destroyed, his deadened vision of racial identity) compelled Schwitters into its and history into fixity introduce to attempt (its Nazism of anti-dialectic The form. of kind somedreams—into and tury—its anxieties, its fragments, its architectural aspirations him from artwork the of his past [5]. severing and exile into him spinning Schwitters, subsume was profoundly opposed to other forces, whose vortex would art art and of human life itself [3]; however, the offorms integrationall of the be wouldthat tality, art an of thatSchwittersvision to- a of wouldhad his feet. find He at [2]. [2]. written, leaving the final version ofthe world of art” in the English Lake District, as Isabel Schulz has however,exile, the “farfromin Schwitters died [1]. century reputation as one of the great avant-garde artists of the 20th sonate his Merz visual collages; and sound the structures of hisUr- Schwitters—theKurt of the in exile of motifs T exemplary its found century 20th the in art of politics The a HW S entities” ofhumanmaterialitself. and assemblagethatarethemselvesanalogoustothe“intrusivenew what BrandonTaylor hascalled“intrusivenewentities”ofcollage work asculminatinginavisionofsoundandbuildingstructures building materiality in language and sculpture—and presents Schwitters’s three oftheserelations—collage,foundobjectsandthestructures the relationsbetweenUrsonateandfinalMerzbau.Hediscusses sound workofSchwitterswithinhisfullMerzproject,theauthorassesses politicsandpoeticsofexilethe20thcentury.modernist Placingthe Schwitters’s ofKurt This papernotestheimportance Merzprojecttothe BarnWalland theMerz Schwitters’s Ursonate ©2015 ISAST files associatedwiththis issueofLMJ. foraudio,videoandothersupplementary See r s a ’ r s z U B rsonate a y r Merz n W buildings and sculptures; and buildingsMerzbau a structures, collages and sounds and collages structures, l l s Merz o Merzbau incomplete n art has secured his his secured has art Merz Merzbau totality [4] an- building” [6]. “world- called has Boeri Stefanowhat with obsession an in again, time and time him displacing was that century a of Merzbau the rebuild to tried Yet he collections. private in survived paintings his of Many exterminated. friends his nihilated, be restoredbe to its central position in Schwitters’s been seen as inferior to the Merz project as a whole, needs to nata as a unifiedsound assemblage and structure,which has the called has Notz Adrian what of part as reclaimed be to has itself resurrected constantly in his life and later exile. The elsewhere as “intermedia” [9]—and which he returned to and music and performance, which Dick Higgins has elaborated his called he what him to build sustained Schwitters as a refugee. He carried within and a singular artistic comprehension of what he was trying he stood for. The dissolution of artistic genrethrough collage of the totalitarian impulse to destroy his work and everything rebuild was part of that reclamation of his past art in the face compulsionto endless his and [8], exile an as went he ever wher-“home”him his with Schwitters carried said, has she original the ofelaborations and ations interim forms and in an imperfect state”imperfect aninterim formsin Reinterpreta-and [14]. in existed ever only and fragment, a than more no remains the of said has Elger As[13].projects of both Schwitters and those who aim to reinterpret his structions again display a compulsion to rebuild on the part by Schwitters and others since [12]. The ubiquity of its recon- typographical notations thereof and in its limited recordings the Jan in fixity some found Tschicholdhas work The such. Unlike[11]. of Babel the collapse the or Fall the before or birth in humans of guage language into its molecular entities or an The son Ernst. his by performed was Kurt by supposedly recording 1958 the that now clear is It resolved. been now have them the ing Karin Orchard has said that all of the There fragmentsare of recordingsSchwitters of perform- Ursonatedisputes; aboutauthenticity the ofofsome time and time again—relentlessly and in the face face the in and again—relentlessly time and time Merzbau “transfigurations” [10]. The Ursonate LEONARDO MUSICJOURNAL, V is a performance of the dissolution of dissolution the of performance a is Merzbau,itnot iscollage a work as Ursonate —an amalgam of poem, poem, of amalgam —an Merzbau“our, subject Merzbau project [7]. As [7]. projectMerz ol. 25,pp. 89–92,2015 Ur-language, a lan- Ursonate so- are continu- Merz work. Ursonate Merz 89 tions of the Ursonate continue to be performed and recon- discovered Ursonate text/translation, committed to text just stituted, but unlike the Merzbau, they are not interim forms after the war, but a fully completed sonata structure fixed in the Schwitters highlights novelties of notation, typography, verbo-vocal and Tschichold versions. The Ursonate, then, is not a series experimentation and performance that help explain the of sound collages or a disparate set of recordings or manu- continuing influence of the Ursonate on sound and con- scripts. It is a unified, composed sonata built from sonorous crete poetry, both in the twentieth century and today [22]. objects of speech that finds its notation in the 1932 recordings and transcriptions in the last Merz journal. Ironically, it was The use of speech for sonic composition, as Cathy Lane has Tschichold’s modernist typography that was first brought to noted, predates recording itself [23], but this does not mean the attention of the Gestapo. After a month in a concentra- that the Ursonate can simply be described as either music tion camp, having been accused of “cultural Bolshevism,” or poetry, nor can it be fully explained as a subset of either, Tschichold fled abroad. a third space in which musical composition and poetry are Isabel Schulz illustrates well the significance of the Ur entangled. Is it instead, as Webster has suggested, a parody of sonate in her study of the importance of collage to Schwit- the sonata form—the emanation of a will toward music that ters’s work: Schwitters simply could not achieve? [24] Certainly, performances of the Ursonate have been more Schwitters’ most important literary work is the “Ursonate” or less musical. While the disputed Schwitters recording and (Sonata in Primordial Sounds), a tone poem in sonata form another by Jaap Blonk [25] are clearly the products of sonic that opens up to language, sounds and noises new realms composition of speech, the Die Schwindlinge recording is between poetry and music. It illustrates in an exemplary more hurried and is a performance of songscape rather than manner how Schwitters placed tradition in relation to what of spoken word. A recording by Spiritus Noister explicitly was new, thereby transforming it [15]. reworks the Ursonate as a piece for two voices and a “musical What Schulz calls the “multivoiced harmony of colored environment” [26]. papers” in Schwitters’s collage work [16] is transformed in Schwitters carried the Ursonate within himself, in memory, the Ursonate into a different sense of the “multi-voice.” The for most of his life. That memory remained untouched and multiple vocalizations of the piece not only display different was constantly redeveloped and rethought. It could not be facets of Schwitters but also present a structure of sounds and subject to book-burning—even if the definitive Tschichold verbalizations that are reincorporated in the work and trans- version disappeared from view under the Nazi regime. formed by being placed there. Schwitters recognized the dis- TheUrsonate also tells us something about the indetermi- junction between the temporal rearrangement of sounds and nacy that was at the heart of the never-completed Merz proj- the spatial organization of color [17]. Gwendolen Webster ect. The multiple performances ofUrsonate since Schwitters’s leaves the question of the Ursonate’s form, whether poetry death have used the Tschichold text as a starting point as one or music, open [18], but she also recognizes the compelling would use musical notation for a performance. Rather than nature of Schwitters’s vision of himself as an author of a com- a resurrection, each performance is to be seen as a point of position, if not a composer of music: recovery. There is a materiality to the Tschichold text such that it retains authorial status rather than being one of many It was his lifelong conviction that there was an embryo mu- by a number of performers. sical genius inside him, a brilliant composer just waiting Ideas on how to present the Ursonate rest on assumptions to blossom into existence. Until that talent revealed itself, that its essential form is either music or poetry or a transi- he decided to use what musical theory he had learnt by tion between them, implying that the categories of music and composing a sonata of sounds in four movements, taking poetry themselves have some degree of fixity. Rather than “fmsbw” as its opening theme. The result was one of the questioning the Ursonate, I find that theUrsonate itself inter- greatest and most innovative works, the Ursonate [19]. rogates the very performative status of the organized sound Uncovering the history of the production of the Ursonate, of music and the organized sound of the word. The obsessive constructed through multiple performances in multiple reworkings of the Ursonate are so compulsive for artists such spaces, Webster notes its problematic status in relation to as Blonk and Golan Levin precisely because of the enigma sound, arguing that its significance has been shaped by a and mystery that are the essence of the piece. lack of resolution and an ambiguity about what it actually Not only does the Ursonate counterpose its own logic to is. Schwitters recited it over and over again, alone and with that of other, darker totalities; it also acts as a locus of trans- friends, with the first performance taking place at the Sturm mission of a sensibility and an act of survival as Schwitters left Gallery in Berlin [20]. Germany. Every breath and pause and vocalization is a vic- The question of how to translate and visualize the spoken tory against submission and for the sustaining of art into the word of the Ursonate, and the ways in which certain tran- future. Its performance has multiplied and is carried forever scriptions and translations have come to light, are considered into new spaces of actual and metaphorical exile. both by Jack Ox, in her systematic visual translation, and by Adrian Notz, in his introduction to the important critical Nancy Perloff, specifically around the typography and his- study of the relevance of Merz to contemporary art, sees the tory of its textual development [21]. For Perloff the newly Merzbau 90 Hudson, Schwitters’s Ursonate and the Merz Barn Wall formulated as a metaphor and a module, a device for con- the directions and movements of the constructed surfaces, temporary artistic, architectural, and social practices and there emanate imaginary planes which act as directions developments. It is used as a trigger for architects and art- and movements in space that intersect in empty space, the ists to deal with contemporary complexity [27]. suggestive impact of the sculpture is based on the fact that people themselves cross these imaginary planes as they go How far then can we think of the Ursonate itself as a meta- into the sculpture. It is the dynamic of the impact that is im- phor and a module? What is Schwitters imparting in that portant to me. I am building a composition without bound- transmission/translation? aries, and each individual part is at the same time a frame Coll age, Objects, Architecture for the neighbouring parts: everything is reciprocal [32]. The idea of the fragment is central to both theMerz Barn and The Ursonate does not provide a home for language or the Ursonate [28]. The fragmentary and the momentary and meaning or dwelling but rather a way of thinking about their recomposition as a work of art are inscribed at the very movements, boundaries and intersections on an imaginary origin of the Merz label and project. Brandon Taylor argues plane. Each journey with and within the interior of the as- that modernist collages were simultaneously material and semblage of the Ursonate, each articulation of its elements ideological assemblages that could be understood as “intru- and each traverse of the whole piece by the listener is situ- sive new entities with a hybrid ontology all of their own” [29]. ated in the specific site of the imaginary. In this sense it is an The centrality of the Ursonate to Merz lies essentially in its imaginary world–building, a fiction full of magical precipices dissent from Schwitters’s usual collage procedures. It creates in which, for the duration of the experience, the quotidian a unification of its elements, a hybrid that rivals the sonata world is suspended. Composed before Schwitters’s physi- structures of 19th-century orchestral music. The very hybrid- cal exile, the sonata almost prefigures the dissolution of his ity of the piece can be seen in its multiple motifs, recursions world, the fragments unified into a total compositional work and reversions, its use of elemental syllabic structures that as he tried (and failed) to do with the Merzbau. both articulate a gesture and disarticulate sense. The fact that Yet the quotidian is not absent; like the elemental articu- this was not a piece of glossolalia is demonstrated by the lations of the Ursonate and its linguistic found objects, the essentially fixed program of the piece as developed over a found objects that are central to the physical and material decade. The effect of the piece in its various movements mim- Merz structures are still apparent if subsumed and rendered ics the structure of language, but without imparting or car- inarticulate in terms of their original function. Like the “ur- rying over meaning. The assemblage of the multiple objects language” of Cathy Berberian’s performance in Luciano Be- of the piece uses the “primordial sounds” or “found objects” rio’s Visage (1961) and Pierre Jodlowski’s Dialog/No Dialog within language and assembles them in a new formation. (2009), where found objects of language are meshed with Those sound objects (imitation, mimicry) change profoundly the texture of the whole piece, the very wall of the Merz Barn as they are incorporated into the unified structure of the so- disinvests those objects of any meaning outside of their loca- nata. Even when basic syllables have some form of originary tion in the full assemblage of the structure. The sewage pipe, meaning, that meaning is subsumed into the piece as a whole the tin spiral, the metal forks, the wooden insert embedded and dispersed. in the plaster of the Merz barn wall were all found objects on Thinking through theMerz structures architecturally [30] the Cylinders estate at Elterwater. Each of the objects articu- also entails dealing with the Ursonate itself as an architec- lates a movement, a line to draw the viewer across the texture tural assemblage and composition, as Schwitters saw it. As of the wall, but they are also submerged within the magma Schwitters himself said, “Everything had broken down . . . and flux of the plaster itself. The architectural vision of the and new things had to be made out of the fragments” [31]. barn wall, however, is dissonant with the structural assem- The metaphor of architecture can take us some way in un- blage of the sound movement of the sonata. The unified and derstanding the relation between the built structures and the composed masterpiece of the sonata can be contrasted with spoken pieces, both ironically dispersed in fragmentary ways the unfinished fragmentary last Merzbau. Both are works after Schwitters’s death; of the politics of exile and of modernism, their very opac- I am not constructing an interior for people to live in, ity foreshadowing the multiple expressionisms yet to come. for the new architects can do that far better. I am build- The Ursonate was a part of the Merz totality but occupies a ing an abstract sculpture into which people can go. From distinctive, canonical space within it. References and Notes 3 Schulz [2] p. 7. 1 Friedhelm Lach, Der Merz Künstler Kurt Schwitters (Cologne, Ger- 4 Gwendolen Webster, “The Merzbau as Gesamtkunstwerk,” in Adrian many: Verlag M. Dumont, 1971). Once of the Merz barn in Elter Notz and Hans Ulrich Obrist, eds., Merz World: Processing the Com- water, the last Merzbau is now in the Hatton gallery, Newcastle. plicated Order (Zurich: JRP|Ringier, 2005) pp. 43–80, pp. 43–44. 2 Isabel Schulz, Kurt Schwitters: Color and Collage (Houston: Menil 5 Megan R. Luke, Kurt Schwitters: Space, Image, Exile (Chicago, IL: Foundation, 2011) p. 8. Chicago Univ. Press, 2013). Hudson, Schwitters’s Ursonate and the Merz Barn Wall 91 6 Stefano Boeri, “The Merzbau as a Spatial Device,” in Notz and Obrist 21 Jack Ox, “Creating a Visual Translation of Kurt Schwitters’s ‘Ur- [4] pp. 12–14; p. 12. sonate,’ ” Leonardo Music Journal 3 (1993) pp. 59–61; Nancy Perloff, “Schwitters Redesigned: A Post-war Ursonate from the Getty Ar- 7 Karin Orchard, “ ‘The House Is Past’: Kurt Schwitters and Gregor chives,” Journal of Design History 23, No. 2, 195–203 (2010). Schneider,” in Notz and Obrist [4] pp. 81–89; p. 81. 22 Perloff [21] p. 202. 8 Orchard [7] p. 97. 23 Cathy Lane, “Voices from the Past: Compositional Approaches to 9 Hannah B. Higgins, “The Computational Word Works of Eric An- Using Recorded Speech,” Organised Sound 11, No. 1, 3–11 (2006). dersen and Dick Higgins,” in H. Higgins and D. Kahn, eds., Main- frame Experimentalism: Early Digital Computing in the Experimental 24 Webster [19] pp. 240–241. Arts (Oakland, CA: Univ. of California Press, 2012) pp. 279–283. 25 Blonk [13]. 10 Adrian Notz, Introduction, Notz and Obrist [4] p. 5. 26 Kurt Schwitters, Ursonate, Wergo, CD (2008); Die Schwindlinge, 11 George Steiner, After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation What a Beauty, Wergo, CD (2004); Spiritus Noister, Ursonate, Hun- (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1975). garotron, CD (2014). 12 The Scherzo of the Ursonate was issued as a gramophone record in 27 Notz and Obrist [4] p. 5. the last Merz journal in 1932—these were recordings from 1925–1932, accompanied by the definitive version in Jan Tschichold’s typo- 28 Dorothea Dietrich, “The Fragment Reframed: Kurt Schwitters’ Merz graphic transcript. It was never changed beyond this point. See also Column,” Assemblage No. 14 (1991) pp. 82–92; Rudi Fuchs, Conflicts Kurt Schwitters, “Urwerk. Schwitters und andere lesen Schwitters,” with Modernism: Or the Absence of Kurt Schwitters (Bern, Switzer- MP3-CD mit Begleitbuch, Zweitausendeins Verlag, Frankfurt am land: Gachnang and Springer, 1991). Main, 2008. The 1932 recording includes only the Scherzo of the piece and is not of the highest quality. 29 Brandon Taylor, Collage: The Making of Modern Art (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2004) p. 19. 13 See the performance by Jaap Blonk and his section, “Some Words to Kurt Schwitters’s URSONATE,” in Karin Orchard, ed., Kurt Schwit- 30 John Macarthur, “Schwitters and Benjamin: the Modernity of the ters in Norway (Oslo: Henie Onstad Senter, 2009). Baroque and Romanticism,” Journal of Architecture 3, No. 15, 283–300 (2010). 14 Dietmar Elger, “The Merzbau and Expressionist Architecture,” in Notz and Obrist [4]) pp. 15–32; p.15. 31 Dietrich [28] p. 85. 15 Schulz [2] p. 7. 32 Webster [19] p. 316. 16 Schulz [2] p. 57. 17 Schulz [2] p. 60. Manuscript received 2 January 2015. 18 Webster [4] p. 49. Martyn Hudson is the coordinator of the Co-Curate North 19 Gwendolen Webster, Kurt Merz Schwitters: A Biographical Study (Cardiff, U.K.: Univ. of Wales Press, 1997) p. 163. Webster sees the East project at Newcastle University and a research associate in Ursonate as analogous to the collections of found objects, using frag- the International Centre for Music Studies. He has published mentary units of sound and disparate letters and reformed words, widely on archives, sound, landscapes and avant-garde music pp. 163–164. and is one of the organizers of the Merz North group, dedicated 20 Webster [19] pp. 163–167. to scholarly work on Schwitters and Northern England. 92 Hudson, Schwitters’s Ursonate and the Merz Barn Wall artists’ statements Making Activist Sound ish, ad hoc social network. (In olden times we called them Christopher DeLaurenti “neighbors.”) Protests and marches contravene what we are sup- TABS RACT The author discusses his approach to recording posed to do in a city: working, spending and not talking protests and other politically charged soundscapes. to strangers. Deterritorialized counterpublics gather, or in plain English, overlooked, ignored and stereotyped indi- To listen is to liberate. I start with myself by taking micro- viduals, small groups and communities gather to reclaim phones toward and—when I muster enough courage— and redefine the city through sound. beyond the boundaries of property, the law and oppression. I record protests and other politically charged sound- I make field recordings, but I am not interested in building scapes. I might be marching in the crowd, but I do not a documentary archive or capturing the essence of a place count myself as a protester—yet. When the cry “Raise your or an event. When I tape small microphones to my skull, fists in the air!” comes, my deck stays in my hand; and dur- or button up a stout leather vest with sewn-in mics, or ing the call and response of “No Justice? No Peace!” I stay strap an ORTF [1] stereo pair to my homemade mic boom, silent, lest my proximate voice drown out everyone else. I am venturing into the world to ask, “Who is heard?” “Activist Sound” is what I call the sound pieces, perfor- “Who has?” “Who is here?” and “Why are we listening to mances and installations I make from field recordings of this right now?” I ask these questions to open my ears protests, testimonies and other pertinent sonic materials of and open my heart. Can I hear justice? social change. The titles are deliberately long and generic, I do not wait for quiet utopias. Let other field recordists e.g. N30: Live at the WTO Protest November 30, 1999; Live seek the primordial absence of civilization. My “field” is the at Occupy Wall Street N15 M1 S17; and Live in Baltimore at city, among people. The field is not a place, but an unstable the March for Freddie Gray April 25, 2015. I hope my boring, condition where the soundscape may change radically at anti-commercial titles accommodate, welcome and perhaps any moment. In the studio, it seldom rains. inspire similar or parallel pieces. Back in 1999, the artist Out in the field, I listen and learn to re-listen. Record- collective Ultra-red made an N30, I made an N30 and ing spurs me to imagine what I will miss and what my there are likely other N30 titles out there for sound, film, microphones pick up. Subject to sensory adaptation, my poetry, etc. ears quickly subsume passing cars and juddering helicop- Names of people, by contrast, wield much more power. ters into a dull, recessed drone while the portable recorder Freighted with assumptions and bias (quick, who has a continues to capture rumbling and careening movement. Ph.D.: Brian or B’Hazul?), names almost never appear in Microphones help me bypass the cocktail party effect, my work, except in litanies or recollections of the dead. No preserving a polyphony otherwise bisected into foreground experts appear by name because I believe the truth of the sound and everything else. “The ear selects,” writes John voice can be judged by what we hear, not by who is named. le Carré in The Little Drummer Girl, “machines don’t.” Nameless voices tell us more. Noise, tapestry, text: Protests are one of the few occa- Much of my work is in English. Shortly before a presen- sions when a city feels lived in, not just inhabited. Unlike tation of N30 in 2003, I found out that most of the gradu- chants at regimented sporting events, urban distance con- ate students were from Spain and Mexico. Although they jures poetic depth amidst open space: Every echoing group were whip-smart and elegantly fluent in English, for many of marchers’ voices emanates a distinct timbre, spatial the accents, words and idioms rocketed by too quickly location and variably passionate presence. What we hear for much comprehension. Afterwards, a graduate student is for us, not for someone’s corporation or logo. Individual keenly described the work as “updated Xenakis,” citing voices chime in too, creating a polyphony in which the lone sound-masses of varying densities, trajectories and pulsa- and local blends with massed voices. Neither is drowned tion. I still rue wasting their time. Linguistic barriers leave out. Beyond the bland term “collective listening,” we can additional room for fellow artists of other cultures and hear an aural model of governing consensus, personal languages to make parallel pieces outside the dumb aura of autonomy and perhaps the germinal sound of an unself- exclusive competition. Pieces such as N30 are neither a primer on trade and glo- Christopher DeLaurenti (sound artist, improviser, phonographer), College of William balization nor an objective record of what happened at the & Mary, Department of Music, Ewell Hall, 221 Jamestown Road, Williamsburg, VA 23185, U.S.A. Email: Sound files related to this article can be found at ©2015 ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 25, pp. 93–99, 2015 93 “As I see it,” declared Igor Stravinsky in Retrospectives For 12 hours that day I moved around the city making and Conclusions, “even the greatest symphony is able to do binaural recordings to edit into a short soundscape piece. very little about Hiroshima.” Symphonies—by me or any- I wanted to make a piece of reportage, capturing events one else—cannot bandage a wound and feed someone, but in their acoustic, spatial context. Sound has a particular they can help expose the behaviors, choices and culprits ability to depict an environment in an uncanny way, espe- who allow evil—poverty, racism, property, war and naive, cially in a culture where the weight of reality and verifica- faultless money—to continue. tion are usually placed on the visual realm (primarily in Most of what I make remains free, online. There is scant news media contexts). I recorded speeches, chants and cultural capital and no money in activist sound. I hope a crowd sounds within a breadth of acoustics (both social just, radical transformation of society renders these works and physical). Through this I hoped to give a version of obsolete, leaving quaint, bygone documents for thesis- events that would better convey the sense of solidarity hungry scholars. experienced during marches and protests. For me, the act of street protest is significant because it is a collectively felt Reference and collectively created disruption of the usual function of an urban space. This significance is lost when the depic- 1 Named after the French National Broadcasting organization (Office tion is set in an expected and repeatable set of visual news de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française), the ORTF microphone con- figuration “consists of two cardioid microphones oriented outward media tropes. from the centerline of the sound source with an included angle of 110 The resulting piece, Sounds of the Strike, was carried degrees and with a capsule space of 17 cm.” See Streicher and Dooley, online on the New Statesman website (a relatively left- “Basic Stereo Microphone Perspectives,” JAES Journal 33, Nos. 7/8 (1985) p. 549. wing news review magazine). I received comments from listeners that the piece “really felt like being there.” While this could be considered a success, I was troubled by the Manuscript received 15 July 2015. idea that I had just created a different type of fetish for a different audience. The piece may have presented a more Christopher DeLaurenti is a sound artist, improviser, nuanced depiction of protest by emphasizing it as a site and phonographer. He makes installations, sound works and of spatial disruption, but the fundamental relationship multifarious live performances for exhibitions, concerts and between producer/artist and consumer remained the same. festivals, most recently at Goldsmiths College (London, 2014), This was a problem for me, as I understand protest to be Third Practice Festival (Richmond, 2013), Whitney Biennial an act of engagement, exploration and action, not one of (New York, 2012) and INSTAL (Glasgow, 2010). remote listening to a predefined object. To investigate the further potential of the recordings I used them in an inter- The Lines Beneath Your Feet: active installation. Representing Urban Protest through Sound The Lines Beneath Your Feet (Fig. 1) used floor pads as triggers for sections of the recordings. The pads were cov- Christopher Wood ered with images of the road surface in London’s financial district. The interaction was intended to invoke the act of TABS RACT The author describes the development of a series of pieces based on recordings of protest in public spaces. Particular marching and the feeling of being present in the streets. attention is paid to the ability of each form to represent the experience I did not draw up any rules regarding how many people of participating in a protest. The biggest strike of U.K. public sector workers in a gen- eration took place on 30 November 2011. The protest was called by a coalition of unions in response to government austerity measures. These measures included pay freezes and a re-drawing of the rules around pensions for public sector workers. Picket lines formed outside major public buildings, and a mass of workers marched through central London. Parallel protests included vocal demonstrations at Liverpool Street station (a major commuter hub in the financial district) and an attempted occupation of an office building near Piccadilly Circus. Christopher Wood, Media Art Technology Programme, Electronic Engineering & Computer Science, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS, U.K. Email: 94 Artists’ Statements could interact with the work at once (although, practically, True Bread: the size of the interface made it difficult for more than The Sounds of Change in Cuba three people to interact with a single floor pad at one time). Neil Leonard What was interesting for me here was my lack of control over the narrative produced by the work. There are valid TABS RACT This article examines True Bread, an installation that criticisms around a lack of openness in interactive art engages listeners in the evolving sonic environment of Cuba. The work and an inability of the participant to contribute to the was made in collaboration with Cuban street vendors, examining the overall meaning of an interactive artwork [1]. However, vendors’ presence as a signifier of imminent social and political change. while by no means being completely open, The Lines Beneath Your Feet did seem to be more open than the True Bread is a 10-loudspeaker, two-video projection more static meanings of Sounds of the Strike, due in part installation that I presented most recently during a fellow- to a different presentational context. The recordings were ship at the Art, Culture and Technology program in the presented in a gallery rather than in an informational/ MIT Media Lab (2014) and previously at the Stephan Stoy opinion-led news review context. The sound was also anov Gallery in New York (2013). The work is the result of played out of speakers rather than through headphones [2], my long-term collaboration with los pregoneros, the street thus losing the immersive binaural qualities of the audio. vendors of Cuba (Fig. 2). True Bread reconstructs the sonic These shifts, along with the audience’s role in triggering the environment of urban Cuba as it was immediately follow- sounds, allowed for more possibilities in interpreting the ing the recent liberalization of policies toward small busi- content. In one interaction, two children spent some nesses. The installation’s six loudspeakers present voices time running back and forth across the pads. They were of pregoneros, within sparse sound design, to evoke the particularly interested in retriggering the sample of the antiphony of the ancient phenomenon of street vendors chant: “I’d rather be a picket than a scab” [3] because they calling out to attract business. The remaining four loud- thought the audio was repeating: “I’d rather be a pigeon speakers in the installation play audio from video projec- in the sky.” tions depicting pregoneros at work. Street protest destabilizes and suspends the habitual Pregóns functioning of an urban environment. During a protest, spaces are occupied and recast as sites of a different kind True Bread had its genesis in a series of field recordings of sociality. At this point, many things usually taken for made while visiting my sister-in-law in Mantanzas, Cuba. granted are up for grabs: power, certainly, but also wider Having frequented the island since 1986, I was accustomed spatial meaning. When the children misheard and repeat- to a society with virtually no private business and conse- edly retriggered the audio, their playful action was much quently a void of advertising. Of course the black market more in keeping with what I understand to be the role thrived under the radar with muted vendors traveling of street protest than the piece’s previous incarnation: an door-to-door to pedal their wares, sometimes naming immersive soundscape held down by the weight of accurate products in code. Around 2011, when they re-emerged on representation. the streets following a loosening of Cuban policies, the pregoneros instantly transformed the soundscape of Cuba, References and Notes creating an ongoing musical theater using idiosyncratic 1 B. Massumi, Semblance and Event: Activist Philosophy and the Oc- vocal marketing strategies. curent Arts (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011) p. 47; R. Simanowski, The first vendor that I came across at that time was Digital Art and Meaning (Minneapolis, MN: Univ. of Minnesota pedaling a homemade cart and singing in a tenor voice, Press, 2011) p. 122. “Soft bread. Really soft. Crackers. Large crackers.” Another 2 The New Statesman post strongly suggested listening to the sound- vendor sold a liquid concoction that he claimed killed ants, scape through headphones. cockroaches and mothers-in-law. One pregonero in Havana 3 “Scab” is a derogatory term for strikebreaker. imitated the sirens and alarms of the car security systems that he sold. Another sang with a voice reminiscent of the famous singer Celia Cruz. Each pregonero performs Manuscript received 2 January 2015. a highly personal chant with a sense of spontaneity that is absent from the formulaic music and commentary that Christopher Wood is an artist, designer and researcher dominates the island’s airwaves. currently pursuing a Ph.D. at Queen Mary, University of Lon- I was compelled to develop the visual component of don. His work explores hierarchies of meaning in space and True Bread when I found a pregonero delivering his bread texture through sound art, locative media and interactive in- using a “readymade” Styrofoam box mounted on a dilapi- stallations. Neil Leonard (composer, artist). Email: See Artists’ Statements 95 dated wheelchair. His chant proclaimed that he is bring- the national newspaper and was later recreated on national ing “the true” bread. The image of capitalism arriving on television. The collaborating pregoneros told us that the a wheelchair, far in advance of the recent normalization performance helped legitimize their practice and stop the of U.S.–Cuban diplomatic relations, could not have been police harassment. more striking. True Bread’s composition and diffusion strategy came from a presentation at the Cuban pavilion of the 55th Llegooo Fefa Venice Biennale at the Museum of Archeology, Piazza Prior to creating True Bread, I created Llego Fefa (2012) in San Marco. This mixed media installation, entitled collaboration with my wife, Cuban artist Maria Magdalena 53+1=54+1=55. Letter of the Year (2013), featured pregonero Campos-Pons, for her homecoming exhibition at Casa de chants and interviews with Cubans describing the eco- las Americas in Havana. Fefa stands for “Familia Extran- nomic and material support they would like from family jera, Family Abroad” and is stamped on the passport of abroad. I used their voices to create a sonic map of urban Cubans living outside of the country. Within Cuba the Cuba, projecting the voices via 18 bidirectional, custom- Familias Extranjeras have limited rights and share an in- made speakers, each emitting sound in two discrete direc- flux status as do pregoneros. For Llego Fefa, we invited the tions, creating a total of 36 sound sources. The piece was pregoneros to sell their chosen products, plastic flowers, suggestive not only of the antiphonal sound of Cuba but peanuts and imitation Chanel No. 5, and also promoted the also of the innovations carried out in 16th-century Basilica arrival of a mythical character “Fefa,” who was invented San Marco, where composers of the day, such as Adrian and enacted by Campos-Pons. Apparently, the pregoneros’ Willaert and Giovanni Gabrieli, specified site-specific black market image had not yet faded at that time, and our placement of instruments and voice in their musical scores performance was interrupted by the arrest of a pregonero for the first time in Europe. for selling Chanel outside the gallery. The idea of providing a forum to reverse the negative Manuscript received 2 January 2015. image of the vendors stayed in my mind. For the 11th Havana Biennale we created a performance called Llegooo Ni e l Leonard is a composer, saxophonist and transdisci- Fefa (2012) that we presented during the opening of the plinary artist, and the Artistic Director of Berklee College of Biennale at the Wifredo Lam Center. The performance was Music’s Interdisciplinary Arts Institute. Leonard has collabo- loosely fashioned after “American Idol” and included pre- rated with Joanne Brackeen, Richard Devine, Vijay Iyer, Phill goneros from the Casa event and a jury of respected music Niblock, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Robin Rimbaud, and Stephen specialists. Introducing what to my knowledge was the Vitiello. His compositions/performances have been featured by first pregonero competition, I detailed how they revived an Carnegie Hall, Musicacustica (Beijing), Sharjah Art Founda- iconic cultural practice and how growing up in the United tion, Moscow Autumn, Museo Reina Sofia, and Jazz Plaza States I knew of the pregoneros long before I had heard International Festival (Havana). Leonard’s performances and of Cuba—due to Louis Armstrong’s version of the iconic installations with artist Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons have Cuban song “El Manisero” (The Peanut Vendor) in which been presented by the 11th Havana Biennale, the 49th and 55th Armstrong sings the part of a Cuban pregonero. Venice Biennales, Museum of Modern Art, and Guggenheim Without mentioning the antagonistic diplomatic rela- Museum. tions between Cuba and the United States and the trade embargo specifically, Llegooo Fefa suggested the need for family reunification, international cooperation and mecha- B lack Field Plates: nisms to enable growth of small businesses. The day before Emergent Ecologies in Sonic Art the competition there were attempts to censor a compan- Nathan Thompson ion installation that we had created, but to my surprise the pregonero competition was reported on the front page of TABS RACT Black Field Plates (2014) is a series of sound installations. The series is an investigation into the politics of emergent sound composition. By imitating the ways in which natural systems organize matter, these sound installations self-organize sound and compose music. Musicians have long drawn inspiration from the natural world. Predetermined musical structures are used to fit the fluid and complex sounds of the natural world into patterns of discrete pitches and durations. The origins of Western music can be traced to the harmonic relationships Pythag- oras derived from the hammering of blacksmith’s anvils. In Nathan Thompson, 2a Seaview Terrace, Thirroul, NSW, Australia. Email: Fig. 2. Neil Leonard, Pregonero in Mantanzas, Cuba, such as those featured See 96 Artists’ Statements (1974) produces an adaptive composition from a combina- tion of audio feedback and phasing effects that sonically mutates beyond its score. More recently, Usman Haque’s Evolving Sonic Environment (2009) presented an interac- tive sonic environment that built a representation of its occupants through a network of sound and sensors. This work also draws from its environment in a way that moves beyond traditional musical structures. These works rely on a systems-based approach to composition that is grounded in the interactions that connect us to the natural world. Haque specifically references the work of cyberneticist Gordon Pask, who was one of a number of mid-century cybernetic researchers to explore the adaptive processes Fig. 3. Nathan Thompson, Black Field Plates, sound installation, steel, fur, effects pedals, speakers and piezo transducers, 2014. Shown here at that composed the biological, social and physiological Audio Foundation, Auckland NZ, September 2014. (© Nathan Thompson) worlds via material systems. Pask’s Musicolour (1953) operated within theater envi- ronments and engaged participants and observers in sym- order to create his musical system, Pythagoras separated metrically adaptive relationships. The music in Musicolour sounds from their materials and divided them into math- was not specifically controlled by a composer, a device or ematical ratios. This separation of sound from its materials the audience; rather, it was self-organized directly from a created a political division between noise—defined as the recursive environment composed of light, sound, simple sounds of the world—and music, which adhered to discrete electronics and human interaction. Pask’s work built on mathematical ratios. The works I have created in the series that of other cyberneticists, including Ross Ashby and Black Field Plates (2014) challenge this exclusionary politics W. Grey Walter. Ashby’s homeostat (1948) modeled biologi- with emergent systems that generate audio feedback from cal processes and self-stabilizing physiological processes; basic materials such as steel, electricity, copper, piezo crys- Walter’s Machina speculatrix (1948/1949)—robots that tals and standard effects pedals. The process is a political resembled tortoises—demonstrated how emergent behav- one in which the power of the composer is redistributed ior could be modeled by small groups of wheeled robots from a predefined and hierarchical musical structure to an armed with little more than a series of simple recursive adaptive material system. The emergent sonic ecologies of electronic processes. Pask, Ashby and Walter each pre- Black Field Plates challenge the use of predesigned musical sented devices designed to facilitate emergent activity systems as the only way to produce music. beyond their physical designs. Composed of suspended black steel plates in two sizes, Emergent material systems connect both cybernetics each installation consists of multiple audio feedback sys- and experimental music to ecological systems. Emergent tems placed in dialogue with one another (Fig. 3). The compositions, whether they are formed within cybernetics installation as a whole models the complex behavior that or experimental music, do not rely on instruments for their can arise from simple materials and electricity. The works composition; instead they form music from the connec- in the series explore relationships among feedback, sys- tions between elements in the system. Emergent composi- tems of self-organization, nature and sound. The plates tions, such as Black Field Plates, are systems built from the are paired: One plate contains a speaker resonator and the ground up, and their operations are directly linked to their other a piezo transducer. Together these form vibrating material constructions. The construction of Black Field plate speakers and reverberant microphones. The plates Plates generates indeterminate behavior—a connection form compositions that respond to movement within the to nature that was explored extensively by John Cage [1]. environment, including movements in the air, talking and Cage’s replacement of musical systems with indeterminate incidental noises. The sets of plates are augmented by a systems associated with nature is no less political today variety of tuned phaser and effects pedals that break the than it was when he first conceived of it. In this context, the feedback into adaptive rhythms and patterns. adaptive nature of Black Field Plates challenges composers Black Field Plates sits within an expanding lineage to think beyond the constraints of pre-structured musical of musical compositions that use feedback to connect systems. materials and environment. Alvin Lucier’s Vespers (1968) The Black Field Plates series explores connections employed sonar location technology to create a compo- between nature and adaptive systems by grounding them in sition that maps an environment with sound, drawing the interactions between simple physical materials. Some attention to nocturnal navigational processes associated installations of the Black Field Plates have used a linked with bats. Lucier’s work challenges the politics of tradi- double feedback loop that produces a kind of dynamic sta- tional musical notation by replacing a musical system bility in sound. In these cases, the two plates are networked with a communication system. David Tudor’s electronic so that when one speaker-plate combination increases in works replace musical notation with meticulously tended volume, the other draws energy from it, creating a shift- networks of electronics. Nicolas Collins’s work Pea Soup ing dynamic equilibrium. Using stiff wires that create an Artists’ Statements 97 additional physical connection between the speaker cones a sonic world that is an integral part of my social identity and the plates can add further sonic complexity. and artistic essence: the post-Soviet bloc. Emergent compositional systems de-emphasize the role Lithuania, a country that faced harsh political, eco- of the composer by integrating his/her role within the nomic and social clashes during World War II, lost its wider context of the environment, blurring the boundaries independence in 1944 and became a part of the Soviet among the composer, the environment and live perfor- Union, where its identity remained until 1991. In wartime, mance. The adaptive processes that compose the natural Lithuania was a noisy place; sounds of military, machin- world provide a rich resource for musicians and offer a ery, political resentment, social injustice and the partisan challenge to determinate musical structures. By using sim- resistance movement were audible. However, during the ple networked materials, sound generated by Black Field postwar period of its occupation, the country’s voice was Plates produces complex emergent ecologies of sound that slowly muted and assimilated by the oppressive voice of the intrinsically link audience, composer and architecture— occupying forces. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, organizationally and materially—to the environment. Lithuanian landscapes have been gradually acclimat- ing to the aural constructions of the West, consequently Reference obscuring the gap between Western and post-Soviet urban and rural soundscapes. Here I present a selection of field 1 Benjamin Piekut, “Chance and Certainty: John Cage’s Politics of recordings from Soundscapes of the Post-Soviet World to Nature,” Cultural Critique 84 (Spring 2013) p. 134. showcase the modern soundscape of Lithuania. Manuscript received 2 January 2015. Soundscape #1: Town Suburb In creating this soundscape, I was located in a small Lithu- N athan Thompson is an artist and musician from New anian suburb, facing a sonic landscape that encompasses Zealand. His work explores intersections between systems, the echoing bark of animals, a resonating electric hiss, the feedback, sound and nature. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate sound of snow on gravel roads, creaking metal, reverber- at the University of New South Wales and an adjunct lecturer ating tones of populated rooms, gardens, television sets, at the University of Wollongong, Australia. record players and voices—a cacophony of natural and mechanical human-made sounding events. S oundscapes of the Post-Soviet World Today: Soundscape #2: Living Room Resounding Lithuania Sonically, the household in this recording reveals a disso- Sandra Kazlauskaitė nance of internal and external voices, incidental unidentifi- able sounds, sonorous ambience composed of mechanical TABS RACT Soundscapes of the Post-Soviet World Today is an objects and musical noises that interrupt the spoken words. ethnographic sonic art project that aims to reveal the soundscapes of Language shifts from Lithuanian to Russian; words reso- contemporary post-Soviet countries. In this statement the author presents nate, bounce back and then shift again. Suddenly, language the project’s first case study: the soundscapes of Lithuania. becomes secondary; it is all noise and vibration that melts into discordant aural accidents. An ocean of sound relentlessly pulsates, vibrates and reso- nates in and through our bodies. Some sounds remain Soundscape #3: Laisve˙s Ale˙ja (City Centre) unexplained, unidentifiable, mystical and unrecognizable, Once a buzzing, raucous sounding space full of voices, while others find their source and origin, thus becoming conversations, background noises, hums and roars, the city visible. Most are heard; however, not all are attended or center is now a place of sonic abandonment: The central listened to. As a practicing sound artist and a researcher of department store now resembles a construction site; the sonic environments, I search for noises, hidden sounds and fountain has become a pile of rust, ice and mold. The place silences buried under the dominance of the visual—flash- produces minimal incidental noises; some mechanical, ing lights, digital images, billboards and faces. I search for some organic in nature. The place has lost its sonic time. It sound in order to inspect and define my immediate ter- is deserted; sporadic voices and muffled footsteps become ritory and embody new meanings. I choose to close my audible at points; however, the overall sonic landscape lies eyes, exit the audiovisual complex, locate and sustain the there still, filled with minor harmonies. discovered sound objects, and patiently wait for the sounds to reintroduce me to soundscapes that compose the con- Soundscape #4: Public Transport temporary world. With this in mind, I began my search for This short but compelling aural event recorded in a mini- bus in Lithuania captures a combination of radio sounds, Sandra Kazlauskaite˙, 6 Hitchcock House, 194 Pitfield Street, London, N1 6JP, U.K. car-induced mechanical sounds and leading vocal parts of Email: 98 Artists’ Statements contemporary landscape. Ultimately, nature cannot escape the industrial noise. The Cacophonous Landscape of Contemporary Lithuania While trying to determine Lithuania’s newly transformed sonic identity, I have so far discovered a sonic land- scape that appears to be more ambiguous than initially expected—an environment surrounded by nonlinear, dis- parate sounds, where the notion of sonorous independence is yet to be embodied. The new conditions of contemporary culture have neutralized the national soundscape: Sounds of religion, tradition and rituals are dissipating. Fables, myths and sonic constructions of tradition are contained within dedicated, separated spaces and tend not to leak to public consumerist spaces or even rural environments. Fig. 4. Sandra Kazlauskaite˙, Curonian Spit National Park, Nida, Sonically, I face a world of contemporary capitalism and Lithuania, where Soundscape #5: Nida Airport, Lithuania was recorded. (© Sandra Kazlauskaite˙) urban noise production: sounds of consumption, electric- ity, networks, connectivity, automation and labor power. This soundscape is not stable or linear but fragmented, malleable and constantly evolving, according to the unspo- of the minibus audience. The minibus presents itself as an ken laws of capital. Such a construction produces a hybrid exclusive, private space where secrets can be shared. sonic environment that has yet to find its identity. Soundscape #5: Nida Airport Manuscript received 2 January 2015. The sonic image of this piece escapes the urban sound- scape—it evades/flees noise pollution (Fig. 4). The silent environment foregrounds sounds that are usually ignored. Sn a dra Kazlauskaitė is a sound and installation art- In this extreme soundscape, we cannot identify any human ist producing works ranging from acousmatic compositions to voices, movements, screams or machines. Instead, the radio dramas and audiovisual installations to accompany non- acoustic environment is filled with natural life: voices musical objects. Currently, she is undertaking a practice-based of the sea, moving trees and wind. A sudden realization Ph.D. (funded by Consortium of the Humanities and the Arts follows—the industrial world has not entirely receded. South-East England [CHASE]; CHASE is funded by Arts and The low-frequency humming of ship and port noises Humanities Research Council [AHRC] at Goldsmiths, Uni- invade the listener’s ears, and we surrender back to the versity of London). Artists’ Statements 99 100 ABSTRACT chine gun resting atop a bucket stuffed with reams of blank bucketrestingreams with atop of stuffed a gun chine Issue No. 9. ofpages the to glued fur faux of patterns on fingertips for “movements” four in piece Music,” a Howe’s “Fur Nelson and 7; No. Issue in acetate of sheets eight on silkscreened IV Plexigram Marcel,About head in Issue No. 5; John Cage’s sette tape to be “realized” with a handheld magnetic playback cas- recorded of square 6-inch a Hassell’sJon MAP2, were dia phenomenon unto itself: Among the memorable features of issue original an “live”with encounter a but [3], 2011 in published was Kahn Douglas and since 1991 [2]). A (includingformsmany in pioneering musicians and composers of day. the artworksandbygraphicrecordsof scores,vinylarticles [1], 2,000of copies—consisted edition of an an oversized in spiral-bound bundleissue—published each Davis, California, Universityof the to ties with practitioners of consortium a by Edited arts. sound-oriented in engaged those for ration inspi- and information of wellspring a as itself established issues, 11 magazine just multimedia of course the over 1973, and 1967 Between Return toSOURCE L SOURCE article. updatetotheoriginal1969 a provocativecontemporary to 20unconventionalcomposersworkingtoday, resultingin yearslatertheauthorposedsamequestion ends?” Forty-five you, orhasanyone,everusedyourworkforpoliticalsocial composers andmusicianstorespondasinglequestion:“Have editors ofSOURCE:MusictheAvant Garde invited20innovative During theheatoffraughtpoliticalclimate1969, EONARDO MUSICJOURNAL,Vol. 25,pp.100–101, 2015 files associatedwiththisissueofLMJ. foraudio,videoandothersupplementary See I have personal relationships. Several of the initial roundof initial relationships. the haveof personal I Several whom with artists with along first, composers these tacted had works published in editor of (an Austin Larry and Wolff Christian Hassell, Jon wood, Lock- Annea Curran, Alvin Oliveros, whom—Pauline of Rzew workingtoday,Fredericerswhom—Terryand of two Riley compos- unconventional to again once question the pose for Tenney) [5]. James and Moorman Charlotte Lentz, (Daniel absolutely” Tudor)“yes, David and and Childs (Barney all” at “no,not between spectrum the along fell and paragraphs several to “Parma with Manifesto” [4]. Rzewski Replies varied and in length from a few “Neither/Nor” sentences essay his with essays—Feldman written previously of way by responded Rzewski Frederic and Feldman Morton interviews; phone LukasFossand responsesprovidedvia Stiller their Andrew Tenney,James David Reich, SteveMoorman, Charlotte Behrman, Cage, John Riley, Terry Reynolds, Roger Winsor, David Tudor, Hunt, Jerry DickChilds, Barney Higgins, Phil Lentz, Daniel Moran, Ashley,Robert Robert Budd, Harold ends?” or social “Have you, or has anyone, ever used your music for political question: the upon expound to composers invited editors rations of the subject. As a feature of of feature a As subject. the of rations explo- to issue the dedicate to decided result a as day,and sions influenced bythe political andsocial conditions ofthe submis- of number overwhelming the by struck been had of editors the 1969), July in (released 6 No. sue its as first leaf. magazine the into bound is artifact, one-of-a-kind a score, gunshot-riddled the of page #585.”single phony A The image is a stillfrom the creation of Dick Higgins’s “Sym- orchestral manuscript paper shot through with bullet holes. In response to the composers: 20 features by responses article resulting The According to the introduction to the first article in Is- in article first the to introduction the to According special issue, I was inspired to inspired was I issue, special Sound Art Politics The of s ki—answered the question 45 years ago, and six more SOURCE and an instigator of the original article)— Leonardo Music Journal’s call for papers SOURCE on other occasions. I con- SOURCE ©2015 ISAST No. 6, the the 6, No. SOURCE respondents generously suggested colleagues, whom I subse- Larry Austin replied to the question on behalf of SOURCE quently invited to contribute to the project. The new article, as a whole: inspired by the original 1969 one in SOURCE and featuring SOURCE came into being as a statement, political and so- the responses of 20 contemporary composers [6], is available cial, and most of the pieces and articles that were included in full online at References and Notes Oliveros, Terry Riley, Annea Lockwood, Kristin Norderval, Rinde Eckert, Billy Martin, Jon Hassell, Anne LeBaron, Elliot Sharp, Brenda 1 An archive of SOURCE sound files is available at Santoro, Return to SOURCE 101 102 ABSTRACT quickly and from as many sources as possible. The task is task The possible. as sources many as from and quickly as survivors from music of accounts and music collect to contributions. its highlight and encountered, have I challenges of lection se- a outline hosts, currently it content the of overview an contextualizethe I article, humanofperpetratorsandviolations. rights victims In this both of ethnographies involves and commemoration, and memory testimony, cultural rights, human music, between connections investigates Chile,”which Pinochet’s in tivity search project “Sounds of Memory: Music re- and Political Leverhulme-funded Cap- broader my of part is that project Memory, of Museum the by America. in Latin dictatorshipand music to contentrelatedproviding source re- first online compile content.the sourcingtoits also Itis crowd- uses contextsthat all from violencestate and music hind the songs. be- stories the includes also which project, this developing in associates my were ex-prisoners and RightsHuman and Memory of Chilean Museum dictatorshipThe (1973–1990). ical detention and torture centers in Chile during compile songs that were written, sung and listened to in polit- c Cautivos Cantos Cantos Cautivos L contributions current contextualizes detention of Cantos Cautivos (CaptiveSongs) EONARDO MUSICJOURNAL,Vol. 25,pp.102–103, 2015 The CantosCautivosarchiveisavailableat The main reason for developing the archive is the need need the is archive the developing for reason main The hosted permanently now and 2015 January in Launched songs materials, created, and in Pinochet’s Chile Online ArchiveofSongsPoliticalCaptivity Cho h C T K of a torture the music, outlines performed project, Cantos Cautivos is the first online archive of i (www.cantoscautivos.cl) is an online ar online an is (www.cantoscautivos.cl) a in accounts Pinochet’s a provides selection and CantosCautivosprovide project, and listened is Chile is an ongoingan CantosCautivos is r an a documentation. of recently n overview challenges, (1973–1990). i to k in launched the of context the and archive’s This online highlights of P article political inochet’s archive its - [6]. Víctimas museum’s the to site linked also are executed were who ers thatEntriesreferdisappeared prisoners to who andprison- the Commissiondetentionby centersidentified Valech site interactive of survivors the have already [2]. died collect materials is very limited—it is estimated that to over time half the and [1]; Pinochet’sdictatorship during centers torture and detention political 1,000 over were vast—there and Magallanes. Most of these contributions are from ex- from are contributions these of Most Magallanes. and Valparaíso,Bío (Santiago), Bío MetropolitanaAntofagasta, Chile: Tarapacá, of regions fifteen of six in located centers Atpresent, archive the holdsmaterialsrelating detentionto internationalpresscoverage.andnational wide with ciding Memory,coin- of Museum the at dateproject’s launch the marches and pieces from tradition). conservatory the blues, chanson, cabaret, music from films, anthems, military cumbia, ranchera, romantic ballad, easy listening, rock, pop, ing a range of popular genres (Nueva Canción, tango, bolero, Ukraine, the U.K., the Uruguay, the U.S. Spain, and Venezuela), cover- Mexico, Italy, Germany, Ecuador, Yugoslavia, former the Chile, Bolivia, (Argentina, countries of range a from songs contains archive The detention. during torture punishmentindoctrination, as systemor by the musicused initiated by the inmates; a small number are concerned with cians were detained. from Chacabuco concentration camp, made while the musi- recordings several are materials unique archive’s most the radio.Among the onbroadcastrecords oronplayed oners, accounts of listening to music performed live by fellow pris- containaccounts of performing,and 35% contain prisoners’ tries contain accounts of composing in detention, while 45% prisonersthe musical developed their creativity. about the precarious conditions and repression under which Each Each We received the largest number of contributionsaround of number largest Wethe received date to collected accounts the of Most At the present time, approximately 20% of the archive’s en- Cantos Cautivos ats Cautivos Cantos [5], containing records from the Rettig Commission Recintos Recintos users are thus able to access information [3], which provides details of the the of details provides which [3], nr i lne t te museum’s the to linked is entry relate to activities activities to relate ©2015 Katia Chor [4]. nik prisoners currently living in the capital, which suggests that language, as a result of which prosody and nonverbal com- information about the project has not been effectively dis- munication cannot be conveyed, and subjectivity diminishes seminated in the provinces. The lack of contributions from or disappears. the remaining nine regions may also be due to ex-prisoners Despite these difficulties, the project has been successful living in the provinces feeling unmotivated or excluded from in obtaining and exhibiting valuable materials that were pre- participating in a project hosted by an institution based in viously unknown. The website has had a steady number of the capital. visitors from all continents (with about 20,000 hits in the The current status of the project highlights the need to first three months, and subsequently approximately 2,000 engage with potential contributors face-to-face, particularly per month) and has generated wider debates on political with those living in regions that are still unrepresented in the violence—particularly through reader forums at online me- archive. Other factors that make crowdsourcing challenging dia outlets. I expect that Cantos Cautivos will be utilized in for this project are technological gaps and limited IT access future research and other areas of educational activity. For among ex-prisoners, issues associated with the institution- example, it is now being promoted as a classroom resource alization of memories, and the range of psychological bar- among teachers attending the University of Chile’s course in riers imposed by the archive’s format, which may become Education, Memory and Human Rights. Above all, Cantos substantially more significant in situations involving trauma. Cautivos constitutes an act of retribution to the heritage of As ex-prisoners are encouraged to send their experiences in Chile and, particularly, to the community of victims of the written form, they are solely able to employ propositional Pinochet regime. References and Notes Chornik, K. “When Julio Iglesias Played Pinochet’s Prison,” The Guard- ian (14 May 2014): Chornik, Cantos Cautivos 103 onine-l a rchives Leonardo Music Journal Archives Now On-Line! Thousands of texts by artists and researchers around the world working at the intersection of the arts, sciences and technology can now be accessed online. Past issues of Leonardo and Leonardo Music Journal (LM J) beginning with Volume 1 (1968) up through five years previous to the current year are now available to Leonardo and LM J subscribers via the JSTOR Arts & Sciences III Collection. More recent articles can be accessed on the MIT Press web site with a Leonardo or LM J subscription. In the Leonardo Music Journal archives you will find such titles as: “The Earthworm Also Sings: A Composer’s Practice “Electric Body Manipulation as Performance Art: of Deep Listening,” by Pauline Oliveros (Leonardo A Historical Perspective,” by Arthur Elsenaar and Music Journal, Vol. 3, 1993). Remko Scha (Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 12, 2002). “Inventing Images: Constructing and Contesting Gender in Thinking about Elecroacoustic Music,” “Machines of Joy: I Have Seen the Future and It Is by Andra McCartney (Leonardo Music Journal, Squiggly,” by David Byrne (Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 5, 1995). Vol. 12, 2002). “The Design of a Musical Instrument Based on “John Cage and Recording,” by Yasunao Tone Cathode Relays,” by Leon Theremin (Leonardo Music (Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 13, 2003). Journal, Vol. 6, 1996). “David Tudor: The Delicate Art of Falling,” by Bill “Quotation and Context: Sampling and John Viola (Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 14, 2004). Oswald’s ‘Plunderphonics’,” by Kevin Holm-Hudson (Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 7, 1997). “The Burkina Electric Project and Some Thoughts “Origins of a Form: Acoustical Exploration, Science about Electronic Music in Africa,” by Lukas Ligeti and Incessancy,” by Alvin Lucier (Leonardo Music (Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 16, 2006). Journal, Vol. 8, 1998). “Listening to History: Some Proposals for Reclaiming “Free Enterprise: Virtual Capital and Counterfeit Music the Practice of Live Music,” by Jon Rose (Leonardo at the End of the Century,” by Mark Trayle (Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 18, 2008). Music Journal, Vol. 9, 1999). “Harnessing Waves and Elastic Space,” by Liz “Beta Foly: Experiments with Tradition and Technology Phillips (Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 19, 2009). in West Africa,” by Lukas Ligeti (Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 10, 2000). And more! PLUS thousands of reviews by Leonardo Reviews panelists of publications and events since 1968. Leonardo and LMJ articles archived on JSTOR are available to subscribers for an annual access fee of $25. Contact MIT Press Sonic Commentary: Meaning through Hearing curated by Lukas Ligeti Leonardo Music Journal Audio Series Volume 25 Adachi Tomomi: Torturing Twitter (5:59) Francisco López: untitled #333 [for A+a] (6:02) Hasan Hujairi: 10000 Simple Steps to Perfectly Draw an Arabian Horse (9:31) Matthew Burtner: Six Ecoacoustic Quintets, No. 1: Water (Ice) (4:47) João Orecchia: Storage 1896–2015 (4:00) Emeka Ogboh: Monday Morning in Lagos (4:19) James Webb: Le Marché Oriental (2:20) Susie Ibarra: Mirrors and Water (11:04) edGeCut + diFfuSed beats: Listening Still (8:00) Rupert Huber and Robert Adrian X: Applaus (12:12) Available for Download To access these audio tracks, visit Production Credits Curated by Lukas Ligeti All recordings engineered and remastered by Tom Erbe: Leonardo is a federally registered trademark of Leonardo/ISAST. To subscribe or order additional copies of Leonardo Music Journal, see The LMJ Audio Series The LMJ Audio series offers an exciting sampling of curious and unusual, but eminently listenable, music from around the world. Independently curated and annotated by experts and aficionados, these tracks offer a feast for the ear and mind alike. See Sonic Commentary: Meaning through Hearing AS AN ARTIST working with sound and an individual groups were geographically segregated during apartheid, whose family history was shaped by historical and politi- and where the division of agricultural land and the de- cal circumstances in Central Europe, I should find “The segregation of cities remain hotly discussed topics? Might Politics of Sound Art” a highly relevant topic—and I do, Adachi’s Twitter mashup be indicative of Japan’s symbi- although I wonder what this title actually means. otic relationship with technology, as Hujairi’s reflection Wikipedia, not necessarily a source of reliable informa- on pedagogy in Bahrain may represent a region where tion, defines “music” as “an art form whose medium is religious fundamentalism and enlightenment are engaged sound and silence.” Is “sound art,” then, a form of music in a struggle for power in education and everyday life? that does not include the possibility of silence? Initially, Is Huber’s nihilistic piece a response to central Europe’s that seems like an absurd notion. But when listening obsession with intellectuality and social criticism in art, closely, we must admit that there is no such thing as ab- where populist complacency is felt to harken back to an solute silence, as even John Cage, whose emancipation epoch of genocide? And does Ogboh’s soundscape show of sounds hitherto not considered “musical,” was crucial how music is connected to African social and political in enabling the emergence of sound art as a distinct art life by demonstrating the musicality of everyday sounds form, readily admitted. And thus sound art is, perhaps, of Lagos, putting in question the delineation between de- really that form of music that does not include silence. liberate and accidental music? As we consider sound a phenomenon in and of itself, not These interpretations are certainly questionable, but created for the purpose of music per se and yet available not unreasonable. Yet it also seemed important to me to as a compositional tool, the sheer act of listening embarks include pieces where sound evokes politics and history, us on a search for meaning. without concrete references. The pieces by López and Yet what is the “Politics” of sound art? The artistic fram- edGeCut are examples of this. ing of political agendas by means of sound? Aural agit- What, then, can we conclude about the “Politics of prop? Discourse on the politics and intrigue among and Sound Art”? Perhaps that’s a question best left unan- between sound artists? swered so as to recognize the breadth and diversity of how In my choice of artists and pieces for this compilation, sound and music can speak of politics today—for better I hope to address various possibilities. I contacted as di- or worse, good or evil. verse a set of living, active artists as I could, and look- ing at the featured pieces, interesting parallels emerge. A lukas ligeti product of our modern, technology-driven age, sound LMJ25 Audio Curator art tends to appear more globalized than localized in its aesthetic conventions. Yet the U.S.-based contributors, Lukas Ligeti is a composer, improvisor and sound artist Burtner and Ibarra, both focus on nature—might that be whose music explores new directions in rhythm and timbral due to the historical disconnect between art and politics and cultural juxtaposition. He has been commissioned by Bang in a country with no ministry of culture and no official On A Can, the American Composers Orchestra, Kronos Quar- cultural agenda on the part of government? Or perhaps tet and the Goethe Institute and has performed with John Zorn, Marilyn Crispell, John Oswald, George Lewis, and others. An it is related to that country’s deficit in certain aspects of innovator in experimental intercultural collaboration, he co- environmental consciousness, which artists are trying leads Burkina Electric, the first electronica band from Burkina to raise? The South African contributors, Orecchia and Faso, and has collaborated with artists around Africa. He is Webb, on the other hand, tell stories about urban space: Assistant Professor of Music at the University of California, perhaps that’s no coincidence in a country where ethnic Irvine. See 106 LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 25, p. 106, 2015 ©2015 ISAST lmj25 audio Sonic Commentary: Meaning through Hearing curated by Lukas Ligeti See Ad achi Tomomi: Torturing Twitter (5:59) formance works by John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Christian Contact: Adachi Tomomi. Email: Tomomi Adachi, born in Kanazawa, Japan in 1972, is a Fr ancisco López is internationally recognized as one Berlin-based performer, composer, sound poet, installation of the major figures of the sound art and experimental mu- artist, and occasional theater director. He studied philosophy sic scene. Over more than 35 years he has developed a sonic and aesthetics at Waseda University in Tokyo. He has played universe, absolutely personal and iconoclastic, based on a improvised music with voice, live electronics and self-made in- profound listening of the world. He has realized hundreds of struments. He had composed works for his own group “Adachi concerts, projects with field recordings, workshops and sound Tomomi Royal Chorus,” which is a punk-style choir. He has installations in over 70 countries of the six continents. His performed contemporary music: vocal, live-electronics or per- extensive catalog of sound pieces (with live and studio collabo- ©2015 ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 25, pp. 107–111, 2015 107 rations with over 150 international artists) has been released Art Space (Bahrain) and is involved in other independent art by more than 350 record labels/publishers worldwide. He has initiatives in Bahrain. Hasan is also an active oud player. been awarded four times with honorary mentions at the Prix Ars Electronica festival competition and is the recipient of the Matt hew Burtner: Six Ecoacoustic Quintets, Qwartz Award 2010 for best sound anthology. No. 1: Water (Ice) (4:47) Contact: Matthew Burtner. Email: 108 LMJ25 Audio J oão Orecchia: Storage 1896–2015 (4:00) stripes. This is a simple description of a ubiquitous feature of Contact: João Orecchia. Email: LMJ25 Audio 109 Zeenatul Islam Majid mosque was invited to sing the Adhan S usie IBArra is a composer, percussionist and educator (call to prayer) inside the empty remains of the building a who creates live and immersive music that explores rhythm, few weeks prior to its demolition to make way for luxury Indigenous practices and interaction with the natural world. apartments. She is cofounder of digital music company Song of the Bird District Six was one of the most politically charged areas King, with an emphasis on cultural preservation of indigenous in South Africa. Created as the Sixth Municipal District of music and its ecology. Ibarra is a Yamaha, Paiste and Vic Firth Cape Town in 1867, its central location and proximity to the drum artist. harbor made it the home of many merchants, freed slaves and Her recent work includes Circadian Rhythms, commis- immigrants. It was a racially mixed neighborhood compris- sioned for Earth Day 2013 at RPI EMPAC, inspired by endog- ing a high percentage of Malay people, brought, along with enous rhythms for 80 percussionists and 8.1 surround sound Islam, to the Cape Colony by the Dutch East India Company. of Macaulay Library recordings; The City, a Radio Radiance To quote art critic Rory Bester, “Part of the power of Le commission for Young Peoples Chorus of New York City; We Marché Oriental is its located-ness in the machinations of Float, a 2014 commission by Ecstatic Music Festival with apartheid’s distortions of space. When District Six was bull- singer-songwriter Mirah, a sonic retelling of space explorations; dozed, only the Moravian Chapel and the Zeenatul Islam The Cotabato Sessions, a digital music film and album in col- Majid mosque were left standing. Cape Malay traders were laboration with filmmaker Joel Quizon and National Heritage clustered into an apartheid shopping mall called the Orien- artist Danongan Kalanduyan that captures one family legacy tal Plaza. In asking the Zeenatul mosque’s Sheikh Mogamat of gong-chime music in Mindanao, Philippines; and Digital Moerat to sing a call to prayer inside the derelict and about- Sanctuaries, in collaboration with Cuban American composer/ to-be-demolished Plaza in 2008, Webb creates a poignant percussionist Roberto Rodriguez, interaction designer Shan- lament to the destruction that has gone before.” (Art South kari Murali and computer scientist Rommel Feria, a modular Africa, September 2012) music app walk that remaps cities with sanctuaries of mu- sic, most recently installed in New York City and Pittsburgh. Ja mes Webb is a South African interdisciplinary artist based Digital Sanctuaries was commissioned by Lower Manhattan in Cape Town. His work, framed in large-scale installations in Cultural Council, New Music USA, National Endowment for galleries and museums, or as unannounced interventions in the Arts, Artplace America and The City of Asylum, Pitts- public spaces, often makes use of ellipsis, displacement anddé- burgh. Susie Ibarra is a 2014 TEDSenior Fellow and a faculty tournement to explore the nature of belief and the dynamics of member at Bennington College. She teaches percussion and communication in our contemporary world. Webb is acclaimed performance and at the Center for Advancement in Public Ac- for his sophisticated practice, which employs a variety of media, tion, with focused advocacy on human rights extended equally including audio, installation and text, referencing aspects of the to women and girls and rebuilding cities with the arts. conceptualist and minimalist traditions as well as his academic studies in advertising, comparative religion and theater. edGeCut + diFfuSed beats: Listening Still (8:00) S bausie I rra: Mirrors and Water (11:04) Contact: Ish S. Email: 110 LMJ25 Audio form of compound rhythms and layered harmony/implied R upert Huber and Robert Adrian X: Applaus melody. As an artist I am interested in the areas where con- (12:12) cepts of both musique concrète and sound intersect and I can Contact: Rupert Huber. Email: LMJ25 Audio 111 more politics Art, Science and Politics in Leonardo and LMJ, 1968–2015 A Reading List While certainly not exhaustive, the following reading list tions on Art in a Time of Global Warming,” Leonardo 40, presents a selection of articles and special sections published No. 3 (2007). Leonardo and Leonardo Music Journal over the last 48 years GOODYEAR, ANNE COLLINS. “From Technophilia on works and ideas relating to politics and political issues. to Technophobia: The Impact of the Vietnam War on The articles below can be found online via 112 LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 25, pp. 112–113, 2015 ©2015 ISAST POLANSKY, LARRY. “17 Gloomy Sentences (and com- SEARCH, PATRICIA. “Electronic Art and the Law: Intel- mentary) at the turn of the millennium (in the form of an lectual Property Rights in Cyberspace,” Leonardo 32, No. 3 editorial), Leonardo Music Journal 1 (1991). (1999). The Politics of Sound Art, Special Issue, Leonardo Music VALLIS, OWEN, and KAPUR, AJAY. “Community-Based Journal 25 (2015). Design: The Democratization of Musical Interface Con- POLLI, ANDREA. “Noises Off,” Leonardo Music Journal 16 struction,” Leonardo Music Journal 21 (2011). (2006). VAN KRANENBURG, ROB. “Notions of Policy in Eastern POPE, ROBERT. “A Policy Model for Self-Funding of Ethi- Asia—Europe Media Spaces,” Pacific Rim New Media Sum- cal Science through the Arts,” Leonardo 26, No. 2 (1993). mit Companion, Special Issue, Leonardo 39, No. 4 (2006). Power and Responsibility: Politics, Identity and Technology VON BLUM, PAUL. “New Visions, New Viewers, New in Music, Special Issue, Leonardo Music Journal 9 (1999). Vehicles: Twentieth-Century Developments in North American Political Art,” Art and Social Consciousness, ROSENBERG, HAROLD, AND RALEIGH, HENRY P. Special Issue, Leonardo 26, No. 5 (1993). “Discovering the Present: Three Decades in Art, Culture and Politics,” Leonardo 9, No. 2 (1976). YUXWELUPTUN, LAWRENCE PAUL. “Indian Rights, Vision Rights,” Leonardo 29, No. 1 (1996). SCHINCKUS, CHRISTOPHE. “The Art of Finance: An Artist Uses Financial Economics as Inspiration,” Leonardo 44, No. 3 (2011). callo t c urators Leonardo seeks art|science galleries for print and on-line Call for Leonardo Galleries ) The editors of Leonardo invite proposals for curated suda t o k galleries for publication in Leonardo journal and i h on the Leonardo On-Line web site. Galleries should m (©ic include an introduction by the gallery curator and showcase a number of artists working within a common theme or milieu falling under the broad rubric of art + science. submissions Contact: More Politics: A Reading List 113 2015 author index Leonardo Volume 48 and Leonardo Music Journal Volume 25 ADACHI, TOMOMI. “Torturing Twit BAETENS, JAN. Review of Love Ob and Destination,” Leonardo 48, ter,” Audio Track, “LMJ25 Audio jects: Emotion, Design and Material No. 5 (2015). Companion,” Leonardo Music Journal Culture, edited by Anna Moran and BLASSNIGG, MARTHA. Review of The 25 (2015). Sorcha O’Brien, Leonardo 48, No. 2 Intelligence of a Machine by Jean Ep- ALLAMEL-RAFFIN, CATHERINE. (2015). stein, Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). “Interpreting Artworks, Interpreting BAETENS, JAN. Review of Modernism BLUE, ETHAN. “National Vitality, Scientific Images,” in Special Section and Its Merchandise: The Spanish Migrant Abjection and Coercive “Technologies of Scientific Visualiza- Avant-Garde and Material Culture, Mobility: The Biopolitical History of tion,” Leonardo 48, No. 1 (2015). 1920–1930 by Juli Highfill, Leonardo American Deportation,” in Special ANDERSON, GEMMA; BUCK, DORO- 48, No. 5 (2015). Section “Agency in Movement,” Part THY; COATES, TOM; and CORTI, BAETENS, JAN. Review of Paper Knowl 2, Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). ALESSIO. “Drawing in Mathematics: edge: Toward a Media History of Doc BROOKS, ANDREW. “Glitch/Failure: From Inverse Vision to the Libera- uments by Lisa Gitelman, Leonardo Constructing a Queer Politics of tion of Form,” Leonardo 48, No. 5 48, No. 1 (2015). Listening,” Leonardo Music Journal (2015). BAETENS, JAN. Review of Poetic Lan 25 (2015). ANDERSON, KAYLA. “Ethics, Ecology guage: Theory and Practice from the BURCHAT, PATRICIA. “LASER@ and the Future: Art and Design Face Renaissance to the Present by Tom Stanford,” in “LASER—Leonardo the Anthropocene,” Leonardo Special Jones, Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). Art Science Evening Rendezvous” Issue: SIGGRAPH 2013 Art Papers BAETENS, JAN. Review of Self- Gallery section, Leonardo 48, No. 1 and Hybrid Craft Art Gallery, Leo Projection: The Director’s Image in (2015). nardo 48, No. 4 (2015). Art Cinema by Linda Haverty Rugg, BURTNER, MATTHEW. “Six Eco ARCADIAS, LAURENCE, and CORBET, Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). acoustic Quintets, No. 1: Water ROBIN. “Animating Fermi—A Col- BAKKE, MONIKA. “Living (On) Dust: (Ice),” Audio Track, “LMJ25 Audio laboration between Art Students and Around the Globe with Mineral Companion,” Leonardo Music Jour Astronomers,” Leonardo 48, No. 5 Particles & Microbial Hitchhikers,” nal 25 (2015). (2015). in Special Section “Agency in Move- CARBON, CLAUS-CHRISTIAN, and ASLAM, SHABINA, and DARE, ELEA- ment,” Part 2, Leonardo 48, No. 3 HESSLINGER, VERA M. “On the NOR. “Skype, Code and Shouting: (2015). Nature of the Background behind A Digitally Mediated Drama Between BALLARD, NORMAN. “LASER@ Mona Lisa,” Leonardo 48, No. 2 Egypt Scotland,” in Special Section “Live NYC,” in “LASER—Leonardo Art (2015). Interfaces,” Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). Science Evening Rendezvous” Gal- CASINI, SILVIA. “The Aesthetics of BAETENS, JAN. Review of Art, Science lery section, Leonardo 48, No. 1 Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI): and Cultural Understanding, edited (2015). Setting MRI in Motion from the by Brett Wilson, Barbara Hawkins BARBER, JOHN F. Review of On Scientific Laboratory to an Art Exhi- and Stuart Sim, Leonardo 48, No. 3 Listening, edited by Angus Carlyle bition,” in Special Section “Leonardo (2015). and Cathy Lane, Leonardo 48, No. 1 Abstract Services: Top-Ranked LABS BAETENS, JAN. Review of Conversa (2015). Abstracts 2014,” Leonardo 48, No. 5 tions on Cognitive Cultural Studies: BARBER, JOHN F. Review of Records (2015). Literature, Language and Aesthetics Ruin the Landscape: John Cage, the CATTS, ORON. “Not Moving Living,” by Frederick Luis Aldama and Pat- Sixties and Sound Recording by David in Special Section “Agency in Move- rick Colm Hogan, Leonardo 48, No. Grubbs, Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). ment,” Part 1, Leonardo 48, No. 2 1 (2015). BERGSTROM, ILIAS, and LOTTO, R. (2015). BAETENS, JAN. Review of Ethos and BEAU. “Code Bending: A New Cre- CHORNIK, KATIA. “Cantos Cautivos: Narrative Interpretation: The Negoti ative Coding Practice,” Leonardo 48, Online Archive of Songs of Political ation of Values in Fiction by Liesbeth No. 1 (2015). Captivity in Pinochet’s Chile,” Leo Korthals-Altes, Leonardo 48, No. 3 BETANCOURT, MICHAEL. “The nardo Music Journal 25 (2015). (2015). Semiotics of the Moon as Fantasy CHRISTENSEN, LARS LINDBERG; 114 LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 25, pp. 114–119, 2015 ©2015 ISAST PIERCE-PRICE, DOUGLAS; and FARMAN, NOLA; BARR, MATT; Live-Digital Gestures in Action,” in HAINAUT, OLIVIER. “Determin- PHILP, ANGELA; LAWRY, MI- Special Section “Live Interfaces,” ing the Aesthetic Appeal of Astro- RANDA; BELCHER, WARWICK; Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). nomical Images,” in Special Section and DASTOOR, PAUL. “Model & FRANK, CURTIS W. “Chromaticity,” “Technologies of Scientific Visualiza- Metaphor: A Case Study of a New in “Scientific Delirium Madness” tion,” Leonardo 48, No. 1 (2015). Methodology for Art/Science Resi- Gallery section, Leonardo 48, No. 3 COLLINS, KAREN, and DOCKWRAY, dencies,” Leonardo 48, No. 5 (2015). (2015). RUTH. “Sonic Proxemics and the FEIJS, LOE, and TOETERS, MARINA. FRANKE, HERBERT W. “A Contribu- Art of Persuasion: An Analytical “Drapely-O-Lightment: An Algo- tion to the Leonardo Discussion,” Framework,” Leonardo Music Journal rithmic Approach to Designing for editorial, Leonardo 48, No. 1 (2015). 25 (2015). Drapability in an E-Textile Gar- FRIEDRICH, KATHRIN. “Achromatic COLLINS, NICOLAS. “Introduction: ment,” Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). Reasoning—On the Relation of Gray The Politics of Sound Art,” Leonardo FELICE II, GENE A., and KANT, and Scale in Radiology,” in Special Music Journal 25 (2015). DAVID. “Coactive Systems v.1,” in Section “Technologies of Scientific COSTANTINI, GIOVANNA. Review of “The LAST Festival” Gallery Section, Visualization,” Leonardo 48, No. 1 Susan Goethel Campbell: Field Guide, Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). (2015). exhibition, Leonardo 48, No. 5 (2015). FENTON-KEANE, JAYNE. “Three- GARCÍA BRAVO, ESTEBAN, and DELAURENTI, CHRISTOPHER. Dimensional Poetic Natures,” in GARCÍA, JORGE A. “Yturralde: Im- “Making Activist Sound,” Leonardo Special Section “Leonardo Abstract possible Figure Generator,” Leonardo Music Journal 25 (2015). Services: Top-Ranked LABS Ab- Special Issue: SIGGRAPH 2013 Art DOYLE, DENISE. “Art, Virtual Worlds stracts 2014,” Leonardo 48, No. 5 Papers and Hybrid Craft Art Gallery, and the Emergent Imagination,” (2015). Leonardo 48, No. 4 (2015). Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). FERRARA, ENZO. Review of The Atlas GEEM, ZONG WOO. “Can Music Sup- DYKE, PHIL. Review of Enlightening of Climate Change: Mapping the plant Math in Environmental Plan- Symbols: A Short History of Math World’s Greatest Challenge by Kirstin ning?” Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). ematical Notation by Joseph Mazur, Dow and Thomas E. Downing, Leo GERMANN, CHRISTOPHER B. Review Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). nardo 48, No. 1 (2015). of Einstein and the Quantum: The DYKE, PHIL. Review of Idolatry and FERRARA, ENZO. Review of From Quest of the Valiant Swabian by Infinity: Of Art, Math and God by Literature to Biterature: Lem, Turing, A. Douglas Stone, Leonardo 48, David R. Topper, Leonardo 48, Darwin and Explorations in Com No. 2 (2015). No. 5 (2015). puter Literature, Philosophy of Mind GESSERT, GEORGE. Review of The EDGAR, ROBERT. “Mergemerge,” in and Cultural Evolution by Peter Swir- Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert, “The LAST Festival” Gallery Section, ski, Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). Leonardo 48, No. 1 (2015). Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). FIEBIG, GERALD. “The Sonic Witness: GESSERT, GEORGE. Review of This EDGECUT + DIFFUSED BEATS. On the Political Potential of Field Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. “Listening Still,” Audio Track, Recordings in Acoustic Art,” Leo the Climate by Naomi Klein, Leo “LMJ25 Audio Companion,” Leo nardo Music Journal 25 (2015). nardo 48, No. 5 (2015). nardo Music Journal 25 (2015). FORBES, ANGUS GRAEME. “Articu- GILLETTE, KRISTEN. “Sound Relief,” EGBE, AMANDA. Review of Animating lating Media Arts Activities in Art- in “The LAST Festival” Gallery Sec- Film Theory, edited by Karen Beck- Science Contexts,” Leonardo Special tion, Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). man, Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). Issue: SIGGRAPH 2013 Art Papers GILLIAN, NICHOLAS, and NICOLLS, ETTLINGER, OR. “Like Windows to and Hybrid Craft Art Gallery, Leo SARAH. “Kinect-Ed Piano,” in Spe- Another World: Constructing a Sys- nardo 48, No. 4 (2015). cial Section “Live Interfaces,” Leo tematic Typology of Pictorial Medi- FORTIN, CLAUDE, and HENNESSY, nardo 48, No. 3 (2015). ums,” Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). KATE. “The Dual Skins of a Media GOLLIFER, SUE. “ACM SIGGRAPH ETXEBERRIA, DAVID. Review of Façade: Explicit and Implicit Interac- Distinguished Artist Award for Life- META-Life: Biotechnologies, Synthetic tions,” Leonardo Special Issue: SIG- time Achievement in Digital Art: Biology, ALife and the Arts, edited GRAPH 2013 Art Papers and Hybrid Lillian Schwartz,” Leonardo 48, by Annick Bureaud, Roger Malina Craft Art Gallery, Leonardo 48, No. 4 (2015). and Louise Whiteley, Leonardo 48, No. 4 (2015). GROSS, SKY; LAVI, SHAI; and SAFRA, No. 2 (2015). FOUCAULT, PETER. “Attraction/Re EDMOND J. “Visibly Dead: On FAN, YUAN-YI. “Qi-visualizer,” in “The pulsion: Longwave,” in “The LAST Making Brain Death Believable,” in LAST Festival” Gallery Section, Leo Festival” Gallery Section, Leonardo Special Section “Technologies of Sci- nardo 48, No. 2 (2015). 48, No. 2 (2015). entific Visualization,” Leonardo 48, FANTAUZZA, JILL. “Using Creative FRANCIS, KATHRYN. Review of No. 1 (2015). Process to Guide Integrated Art and Making Mind: Moral Sense and Con GROUNDS, MIRANDA D. “Factors Engineering Courses,” in Special sciousness in Philosophy, Science and Controlling Movement of Skeletal Section “The Art/Science Curricu- Literature by Gregory F. Tague, Leo Muscles,” in Special Section “Agency lum in the Classroom and in the nardo 48, No. 5 (2015). in Movement,” Part 2, Leonardo 48, Cloud,” Leonardo 48, No. 5 (2015). FRANCKSEN, KERRY. “Emerging: No. 3 (2015). 2015 Leonardo and LMJ Author Index 115 HARLE, ROB. Review of The Human IONE, AMY. Review of The Aesthetic MARKUS. “Splicing Boundaries: Factor: The Figure in Contemporary Brain: How We Evolved to Desire The Experiences of Bioart Exhibition Sculpture, edited by Ralph Rugoff, Beauty and Enjoy Art by Anjan Visitors,” Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). Chatterjee, Leonardo 48, No. 1 KIRBY, JENN. “Composing Perceivable HARLE, ROB. Review of Literary Gam (2015). Time,” Leonardo 48, No. 1 (2015). ing by Astrid Ensslin, Leonardo 48, IONE, AMY. Review of Leonardo da KIRKE, ALEXIS; JOEL EATON; and No. 2 (2015). Vinci: Anatomist by Martin Clayton EDUARDO MIRANDA. “Real-Time HARLE, ROB. Review of New Guide to and Ron Philo, Leonardo 48, No. 5 Hallucination Simulation and Soni- Poetry and Poetics by James Aitchi- (2015). fication through User-Led Develop- son, Leonardo 48, No. 1 (2015). IONE, AMY. Review of Matter and ment of an iPad Augmented Reality HARLE, ROB. Review of The Practice Consciousness, Third Edition by Paul Performance,” Leonardo 48, No. 3 of Light: A Genealogy of Visual Tech M. Churchland, Leonardo 48, No. 1 (2015). nologies from Prints to Pixels by Sean (2015). KLEIN, ADRIENNE. “The Art/Science Cubitt, Leonardo 48, No. 5 (2015). IONE, AMY. Review of Neuroscience: A Curriculum in the Classroom and HARRIS, YOLANDE. “Scorescapes: Historical Introduction by Mitchell in the Cloud,” Special Section Intro- On Sound, Environment and Sonic Glickstein, Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). duction, Leonardo 48, No. 5 (2015). Consciousness,” Leonardo 48, No. 2 IONE, AMY. Review of To Tell the Truth: KOENIG, INGRID. “Art Curriculum in (2015). Working for Change: Documenting Partnership with Canadian Physics HAUSKEN, LIV. “The Visual Culture Hard Times (1929–1941), directed Lab,” in Special Section The Art/Sci- of Brain Imaging,” in Special Section by Calvin Skaggs, Leonardo 48, ence Curriculum in the Classroom “Technologies of Scientific Visualiza- No. 5 (2015). and in the Cloud, Leonardo 48, tion,” Leonardo 48, No. 1 (2015). JACOBS, CHARLOTTE DECROES. No. 5 (2015). HO, AMY M. “passing,” in “The LAST “Jonas Salk,” in “Scientific Delirium KOHUT, TOM. “Noise Pollution and Festival” Gallery Section, Leonardo Madness” Gallery section, Leonardo the Eco-Politics of Sound: Toxicity, 48, No. 2 (2015). 48, No. 3 (2015). Nature and Culture in the Contem- HODGETTS, STUART. “Syncitium in JESSOP, ELENA. “Capturing the Body porary Soundscape,” Leonardo Music Motion: Exploring Movement in the Live: A Framework for Technological Journal 25 (2015). Skeletal Muscle Cell Shared By Sci- Recognition and Extension of Physi- KNIGHT, MARGOT H. Curator’s In- entific and Artistic Nuclei,” in Spe- cal Expression in Performance,” troduction, in “Scientific Delirium cial Section “Agency in Movement,” Leonardo 48, No. 1 (2015). Madness” Gallery section, Leonardo Part 2, Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). JOHNSTON, ANDREW. “Conver- 48, No. 3 (2015). HOLTER, COLIN. “Critical Aesthetics sational Interaction in Interactive KNOTTS, SHELLY. “Changing Music’s and Compositional Informatics,” Dance Works,” in Special Section Constitution: Network Music and Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). “Live Interfaces,” Leonardo 48, Radical Democratization,” Leonardo HÖST, GUNNAR E., and BOHLIN, No. 3 (2015). Music Journal 25 (2015). GUSTAV. “Engines of Creation- JOHUNG, JENNIFER. “Choreographic KNOUF, NICHOLAS A. “Noisy Fields: ism? Intelligent Design, Machine Arrhythmias,” Leonardo 48, No. 2 Interference and Equivocality in Metaphors and Visual Rhetoric,” in (2015). the Sonic Legacies of Information Special Section “Technologies of Sci- JORDAN, RYAN. “DIY Electronics: Theory,” in Special Section “Leo entific Visualization,” Leonardo 48, Revealing the Material Systems of nardo Abstract Services: Top-Ranked No. 1 (2015). Computation,” Leonardo Music Jour LABS Abstracts 2014,” Leonardo 48, HUBER, RUPERT, and ADRIAN X, nal 25 (2015). No. 5 (2015). ROBERT. “Applaus,” Audio Track, KAMINSKA, ALEKSANDRA. “Medi KOBAYASHI, HILL HIROKI. “Re- “LMJ25 Audio Companion,” Leo ating Poles: Media Art and Critical search in Human-Computer- nardo Music Journal 25 (2015). Experiments of the Polish Site, 2004– Biosphere Interaction,” Leonardo HUDSON, MARTYN. “Schwitters’s 2009,” in Special Section “Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). Ursonate and the Merz Barn Wall,” Abstract Services: Top-Ranked LABS KRIPKE, ELIZABETH; SENFT, STE- Leonardo Music Journal 25 (2015). Abstracts 2014,” Leonardo 48, No. 5 PHEN; MOZZHERIN, DMITRY; HUJAIRI, HASAN. “10000 Simple Steps (2015). AND HANLON, ROGER. “Visu- to Perfectly Draw an Arabian Horse,” KANE, CAROLYN L. Commentary, alizing Biological Complexity in Audio Track, “LMJ25 Audio Com- Leonardo 48, No. 1 (2015). Cephalopod Skin: A Synergy of Art panion,” Leonardo Music Journal 25 KAZLAUSKAITė, SANDRA. “Sound and Science Technologies,” Leonardo (2015). scapes of the Post-Soviet World Today: 48, No. 5 (2015). HUYLEBROUCK, DIRK. “Lost in Edi- Resounding Lithuania,” Leonardo LEGGETT, MIKE. Review of Construct tion: Did Leonardo da Vinci Slip Music Journal 25 (2015). ing an Avant-Garde: Art in Brazil, Up?” Leonardo 48, No. 5 (2015). KENNING, GAIL. “Creative Craft- 1949–1979 by Sérgio B. Martins, IBARRA, SUSIE. “Mirrors and Water,” Based Textile Activity in the Age of Leonardo 48, No. 1 (2015). Audio Track, “LMJ25 Audio Com- Digital Systems and Practices,” Leo LEGGETT, MIKE. Review of Re- panion,” Leonardo Music Journal 25 nardo 48, No. 5 (2015). Collection: Art, New Media and (2015). KERBE, WOLFGANG, and SCHMIDT, Social Memory by Richard Rinehart 116 2015 Leonardo and LMJ Author Index and Jon Ippolito, Leonardo 48, No. “Manifesto on Art, Design and Social BARNEY. “SoundPool,” in “The 2 (2015). Science—Method as Speculative LAST Festival” Gallery Section, LEONARD, NEIL. “True Bread: The Event,” Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). Sounds of Change in Cuba,” Leo MITCHELL, HELEN R. “Dementia, PELLING, ANDREW E. “Re-Purposing nardo Music Journal 25 (2015). Music and Biometric Gaming: Rising Life in an Anti-Disciplinary and LERMAN, RICHARD. “Sounds, Images, to the Dementia Challenge,” Leo Curiosity-Driven Context,” in Spe- Politics and Place,” Leonardo Music nardo Music Journal 25 (2015). cial Section “Agency in Movement,” Journal 25 (2015). MODES, WES; TOWNSHEND, Part 2, Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). LIGETI, LUKAS. “Sonic Commentary: BRENT; and SAMMONS, LANIER. PEPPERELL, ROBERT. “Egocentric Meaning through Hearing,” Audio “Co-related Space,” in “The LAST Perspective: Depicting the Body Compilation Introduction in “LMJ25 Festival” Gallery Section, Leonardo from Its Own Point of View,” Leo Audio Companion,” Leonardo Music 48, No. 2 (2015). nardo 48, No. 5 (2015). Journal 25 (2015). MOON, BARRY, and HARP, HILARY. PETERSEN, STEPHEN. Review of LÓPEZ, FRANCISCO. “untitled #333 “Thermal Image,” Leonardo 48, Marketing the Moon: The Selling of [for A+a],” Audio Track, “LMJ25 No. 5 (2015). the Apollo Lunar Program by David Audio Companion,” Leonardo Music MORIARTY, PHILIP. “Visualizing Meerman Scott and Richard Jurek, Journal 25 (2015). the ‘Invisible,’ ” in Special Section Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). LORUSSO, MICK. “Microbioenergy “Technologies of Scientific Visualiza- PETRENKO, SASHA. “RE(TIME),” Theaters,” Leonardo 48, No. 5 (2015). tion,” Leonardo 48, No. 1 (2015). in “Scientific Delirium Madness” LOURIA-HAYON, ADI. “The Instru- MOSHER, MIKE. Review of Automotive Gallery section, Leonardo 48, No. 3 mentality of Sense in Bruce Nau- Prosthetic: Technological Mediation (2015). man’s Audio Video Piece for London, and the Car in Conceptual Art by PEZANOSKI-BROWNE, ALISON. Ontario (1969–1970),” Leonardo Charissa Terranova, Leonardo 48, “The Tragic Art of Eco-Sound,” Music Journal 25 (2015). No. 3 (2015). Leonardo Music Journal 25 (2015). MARCHENKOVA, VICTORIA. “Lan- NAPPI, MAUREEN. “The Dialectics of PINNIGER, GAVIN JON. “Muscles as guages of Russian and Chinese Nar- Kinesis + Stasis in My Visual Art,” Motors and Muscles as Brakes,” Leo rative Video Art,” in Special Section Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). nardo 48, No. 2 (2015). “Leonardo Abstract Services: Top- NAPPI, MAUREEN. “Lillian F. PLOEGER, DANIËL. “Sonified Freaks Ranked LABS Abstracts 2014,” Leo Schwartz Redux: In Movement, and Sounding Prostheses Sonic Rep- nardo 48, No. 5 (2015). Color and 3D Chromostereoscopy,” resentation of Bodies in Performance MARLETT, DAVID. “Crowdfund- Leonardo 48, No. 1 (2015). Art,” in Special Section “Leonardo ing Art, Science and Technology: NOEL, VERNELLE A.A. “The Bailey- Abstract Services: Top-Ranked LABS A Quick Survey of the Burgeoning Derek Grammar: Recording the Abstracts 2014,” Leonardo 48, No. 5 New Landscape,” Leonardo 48, Craft of Wire-Bending in the Trini- (2015). No. 1 (2015). dad Carnival,” Leonardo Special Is- POISSANT, LOUISE. “Performance MARTINEZ, EMILY. “Anti-Apocalypse,” sue: SIGGRAPH 2013 Art Papers and Arts and the Effects of Presence,” in “The LAST Festival” Gallery Sec- Hybrid Craft Art Gallery, Leonardo editorial, Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). tion, Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). 48, No. 4 (2015). POLANSKY, LARRY. “A Pentalustral MAURO-FLUDE, NANCY. “Parapher- NOLL, A. MICHAEL. Commentary, Interlude,” Leonardo Music Journal nalia: A Design Approach for Elec- Leonardo 48, No. 1 (2015). 25 (2015). tronic-Performance Tools in Special NORTON, D.A. “A DJ In The Library,” POLMEER, GARETH. “Sequences and Section “Live Interfaces,” Leonardo Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). Intervals,” Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). 48, No. 3 (2015). OBER, NATHAN. “Samadhi,” in “The PUNT, MICHAEL. “From Soul to MCGOWEN, SEAN; AYYAD, IAN; LAST Festival” Gallery Section, Leo Mind: A History of an Idea,” edito- VALLEJOS, RICHARD; and nardo 48, No. 2 (2015). rial, Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). HORNE, JOEL. “Bio-Sensing Gar OGBOH, EMEKA. “Monday Morning in PUNT, MICHAEL. Review of Resisting den,” in “The LAST Festival” Gallery Lagos,” Audio Track, “LMJ25 Audio Abstraction: Robert Delaunay and Section, Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). Companion,” Leonardo Music Jour Vision in the Face of Modernism by MCLEAN, ALEX; CHATZICHRISTO- nal 25 (2015). Gordon Hughes, Leonardo 48, No. DOULOU, MARIA; and NG, KIA. ORECCHIA, JOÃO. “Storage 1896– 5 (2015). “Live Interfaces: An Introduction,” 2015,” Audio Track, “LMJ25 Audio PUTNAM, LANCE J.; KUCHERA- in Special Section “Live Interfaces,” Companion,” Leonardo Music Jour MORIN, JOANN; and PELITI, Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). nal 25 (2015). LUCA. “Studies in Composing MEREU, FRANCESCA, and VILLAR- O’ROURKE, KAREN. “From Net- Hydrogen Atom Wavefunctions,” ROEL, JAVIER. “Visions Project K. worked Art to Programmed Drifts: Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). 1 DIY: 3D Interactive Device,” Leo ‘Art as Experience’ Today,” in Spe- “Reading List: Art, Science and Politics nardo 48, No. 2 (2015). cial Section “Leonardo Abstract Ser- in Leonardo and Leonardo Music MICHAEL, MIKE; COSTELLO, vices: Top-Ranked LABS Abstracts Journal, 1968–2015,” Leonardo Music BRIGID; MOONEY-SOMERS, 2014,” Leonardo 48, No. 5 (2015). Journal 25 (2015). JULIE; and KERRIDGE, IAN. PARKER, JENNIFER, and HAYNES, REICHLE, INGEBORG. “Images in 2015 Leonardo and LMJ Author Index 117 Art and Science and the Quest for a Top-Ranked LABS Abstracts 2014,” plinary Cloud Curriculum,” in New Image Science,” Special Section Leonardo 48, No. 5 (2015). Special Section “The Art/Science “Technologies of Scientific Visualiza- SHEA, MICHAEL. “Karakuri: Subtle Curriculum in the Classroom and in tion,” Leonardo 48, No. 1 (2015). Trickery in Device Art and Robotics the Cloud,” Leonardo 48, No. 5 (2015). RENNIE, TULLIS. “Power Struggles: Demonstrations at Miraikan,” Leo THOMPSON, NATHAN. “Black Field The Politics in Composing with nardo 48, No. 1 (2015). Plates: Emergent Ecologies in Sonic Sounds of Protest,” Leonardo Music SMITH, BRIAN REFFIN. Review of Art,” Leonardo Music Journal 25 Journal 25 (2015). Science and Art: The Painted Sur (2015). RICHTER, ERICH, and CARLIN, face, edited by Antonio Sgamellotti, THOMPSON, WILLIAM A., IV with ADAM. Curators’ Introduction in Brunetto Giovanni Brunetti and ALBERT, JEFFREY. “Baghdad Music “The LAST Festival” Gallery Section, Costanza Milian, Leonardo 48, Journal: A Soldier’s Move toward Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). No. 5 (2015). Technology in Music,” Leonardo RODGERS, TARA. “Cultivating Activ- SMITH, BRIAN REFFIN. Review of Music Journal 25 (2015). ist Lives in Sound,” Leonardo Music Triple Entendre: Furniture Music, TINKLE, ADAM. “Experimental Music Journal 25 (2015). Muzak, Muzak-Plus by Hervé Vanel, with Young Novices: Politics and ROMERO, JUAN A.; HOBMEIER, Leonardo 48, No. 1 (2015). Pedagogy,” Leonardo Music Journal GEORG; and LORRAIN, D. SOLIS, HUGO. “Axial: A Sound Art 25 (2015). “Errors, Glitches and Other Mistakes Work of an Oceanographic Expedi- TOUMEY, CHRIS; NERLICH, BRI- in the Life of an Unredeemed Tech- tion,” in Special Section “Leonardo GITTE; and ROBINSON, CHRIS. nology Lover,” in Special Section Abstract Services: Top-Ranked LABS “Technologies of Scientific Visual- “Live Interfaces,” Leonardo 48, Abstracts 2014,” Leonardo 48, No. 5 ization,” in Special Section “Tech- No. 3 (2015). (2015). nologies of Scientific Visualization,” RUBENSON, JONAS. “More Than SPECTOR, TAMI. “Art and Atoms: A Leonardo 48, No. 1 (2015). Meat and a Motor: The Diverse Bio- Chemical Paradox,” editorial, Leo TROMBLE, MEREDITH, and SUM- mechanical Roles of Skeletal Muscle nardo 48, No. 5 (2015). NER, DAWN. “Dream Vortex,” and Their Place in ‘Semi-Living’ STEPHENS, ELIZABETH. “‘Dead Eyes in “Scientific Delirium Madness” Machines,” in Special Section Open’: The Role of Experiments Gallery section, Leonardo 48, No. 3 “Agency in Movement,” Part 1, Leo in Galvanic Reanimation in Nine- (2015). nardo 48, No. 2 (2015). teenth-Century Popular Culture,” TROSHANI, FLUTUR. Review of For SA, ADRIANA. “Exploring Dispari- in Special Section “Agency in Move- getting the Art World by Pamela M. ties between Acoustic and Digital ment,” Part 2, Leonardo 48, No. 3 Lee, Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). Sound Outputs,” in Special Section (2015). TROSHANI, FLUTUR. Review of The “Live Interfaces,” Leonardo 48, STERNBERG, DONNA. “Bridging Global Contemporary and the Rise of No. 3 (2015). Dance and Science,” in “Scientific New Art Worlds, edited by Hans Belt- SALTER, CHRIS. “The Affects of Delirium Madness” Gallery section, ing, Andrea Buddensieg and Peter Agency: An Entangled Ethnography Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). Weibel, Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). of a Living Machine,” in Special Sec- STRANG, DAVID. “Sensitive Chaos,” TUBB, ROBERT. “Controlling Rhythm tion “Agency in Movement,” Part 1, in Special Section “Live Interfaces,” in the Frequency Domain in Special Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). Leonardo 48, No. 3 (2015). Section “Live Interfaces,” Leonardo SAMUEL, NINA. “DASER@Washing- SUNDARALINGAM, PIREENI. “Pulse, 48, No. 3 (2015). ton, DC,” in “LASER—Leonardo Impulse,” in “Scientific Delirium TURNBULL, THOMAS. “Scientific Art Science Evening Rendezvous” Madness” Gallery section, Leonardo Visualisation in Practice: Replicat- Gallery section, Leonardo 48, No. 1 48, No. 3 (2015). ing Experiments at Scale,” in Special (2015). SZABO, VICTORIA. Art Papers In- Section “Technologies of Scientific SAMUELS, KOICHI. “The Meanings troduction, Leonardo Special Issue: Visualization,” Leonardo 48, No. 1 in Making: Openness, Technology SIGGRAPH 2013 Art Papers and Hy- (2015). and Inclusive Music Practices for brid Craft Art Gallery, Leonardo 48, WALZER, DANIEL. “Sound Exchange: People with Disabilities,” Leonardo No. 4 (2015). Reframing Music Composition Edu- Music Journal 25 (2015). TANAKA, ATAU. “Intention, Effort, cational Practice,” Leonardo Music SANTORO, ALYCE. “Return to and Restraint: The EMG In Musical Journal 25 (2015). SOURCE: Contemporary Composers Performance,” in Special Section WANG, JING. “Considering the Politics Discuss the Sociopolitical Implica- “Live Interfaces,” Leonardo 48, of Sound Art in China in the 21st tions of Their Work,”Leonardo Music No. 3 (2015). Century,” Leonardo Music Journal 25 Journal 25 (2015). TEMKIN, DANIEL. “Light Pattern: (2015). SELLARS, NINA. “The Optics of Writing Code with Photographs,” WARNOCK, EVE; SPACEK, KATE; Anatomy and Light: A Studio-Based Leonardo Special Issue: SIGGRAPH and OBER, NATHAN. “HERD: Investigation of the Construction of 2013 Art Papers and Hybrid Craft Art Emergence,” in “The LAST Festival” Anatomical Images,” in Special Sec- Gallery, Leonardo 48, No. 4 (2015). 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ZAREEI, MO H. “Physical Glitch Music: An Introduction,” in Special Section WILSON, BRETT; HAWKINS, BAR- A Brutalist Noise Ensemble,” Leo “Agency in Movement,” Part 1, Leo BARA; and SIM, STUART. “Art, Sci- nardo Music Journal 25 (2015). nardo 48, No. 2 (2015). ence and Communities of Practice,” ZIDES, STEVEN. “Physical Aesthetics: ZURR, IONAT. “Agency in Movement: Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). An Introductory Physics Course An Introduction,” in Special Section WINTERS, IAN. “Horizon Line,” in through Metaphor,” in Special Sec- “Agency in Movement,” Part 2, Leo “The LAST Festival” Gallery Section, tion “The Art/Science Curriculum nardo 48, No. 3 (2015). Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). in the Classroom and in the Cloud,” ZYLINSKA, JOANNA. “On Life, Move- WINTERS, IAN. “Vigil,” in “The LAST Leonardo 48, No. 5 (2015). ment and Stoppage: Agency and Eth- Festival” Gallery Section, Leonardo ZILBERG, JONATHAN. Review of ics in the Anthropocene,” in Special 48, No. 2 (2015). Umm Kulthum: Artistic Agency and Section “Agency in Movement,” WONG, CECILIA. Review of The Con the Shaping of an Arab Legend, Part 1, Leonardo 48, No. 2 (2015). 2015 Leonardo and LMJ Author Index 119 leonardo network news The Newsletter of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology and of l’Observatoire Leonardo des Arts et Technosciences Happy birthday LMJ! Composer/Media Artist; Deborah gathered for the Leonardo Birds of a In case you hadn’t noticed, LMJ has Forster, Primatologist/Cognitive Feather meeting to present their work reached its 25th year of publication Scientist; Eathan Janney, Composer/ in art-science, whether as individual with the issue that you now have in Scientist; Christine Lee, Visual Artist; artists, educators or cross-disciplinary your hand or on your screen. We’d Rachel Mayeri, Media Artist; Gui teams. The featured presentations like to take a few minutes from scur- llermo Muñoz, Physicist; Kate Nich- were followed by lively discussions rying to meet LMJ’s press deadline to ols, Interdisciplinary Artist/Designer; of Leonardo’s role within the SIG- express our appreciation to a number Karl Schaffer, Mathematician/Chore- GRAPH arts community and the of key players in LMJ history. We give ographer; Laurel Shastri, Choreogra- educational sphere, along with other our heartfelt thanks to Founding Edi- pher; Eleni Sikelianos, Writer; Tami avenues to be explored! In addition tor Larry Polansky, who convinced Spector, Physical Organic Chemist/ to these more cerebral events, there Leonardo back in 1990 that it was Writer; and Caroline Wellbery, Medi- was plenty of celebration as well— time to spin off a sister publication cal Doctor/Writer) for taking a full at the Art Gallery reception, hosted devoted to contemporary music and month out of their busy schedules to by Leonardo and MIT Press, and the sonic arts (and we thank Roger explore together in residence. We are at several evening social gatherings Malina, for listening to Larry). We also grateful to the National Endow- of art-science-technology revelers. also thank our longtime leader, ment for the Arts, whose support has Leonardo expresses special heartfelt Editor-in-Chief Nic Collins, who been instrumental to the success of thanks to Leonardo Co-Editor Sheila has wisely steered the ship and the the project. Pinkel for helping to make Leonardo editorial staff with good humor for The artists and scientists participat- @SIGGRAPH 2015 a smashing 18 years. The LMJ Editorial Board ing in our annual Scientific Delirium success! members also deserve our sincere Madness art/science residency have thanks, for providing wisdom and shared their explorations of some- SUPT P OR OUR COMMUNITY guidance throughout the years. And times explosive ideas together in OF INNOVATORS last, but not least, we thank all the the Leonardo On-Line blog over the Since 1968 Leonardo has supported authors and composers who have month of their residency. Scientific the community of individuals, insti- contributed their words, music and Delirium Madness is a collaborative tutions and organizations working sound to the discussion for the last initiative of Leonardo/ISAST and the at the intersection of art, science 25 years! Since Leonardo’s 50th anni- Djerassi Resident Artists Program and technology. We share their work versary is right around the corner that explores and expands on con- throughout the ever-growing Leo (and reminding LMJ of her little sis- nections in the creativity of scientists nardo Network in print, online and ter status), we plan to combine forces and artists. Visit 120 LEONARDO MUSIC JOURNAL, Vol. 25, p. 120, 2015 ©2015 ISAST