Some sound art papers

The papers from the Sound Art Theories Symposium 2011 papers are now available. For those interested in digital archiving, David Grubbs’ paper “‘Remove the Records from Texas’: Parsing Online Archives” discusses two “very different kinds of online archives”, UbuWeb and DRAM (the acronym stands for Database of Recorded American Music, but the archive holds works from other countries as well).

New issue of Hz, #16

Quantum Improvisation: The Cybernetic Presence
by Pauline Oliveros
“It’s already evident that computers and human intelligence are merging. What would I want on a musician chip if I were to receive the benefit of neural implant technology? What kind of a 21st Century musician could I be?” Composer/musician and one of the key figures of electronic music Pauline Oliveros’ essay from 1999 centres around the question by revisiting 100 years of music history since the first magnetic recording in 1899.

Moistmedia, Technoetics and the Three VRs
by Roy Ascott
One of the most influential theoreticians/artists in the field of telematics Roy Ascott’s article about Moistmedia, written in 2000, in which he predicts “a convergence of three VRs” (Virtual, Validated and Vegetal): “At this interspace lies the great challenge to both science and art: the nature of consciousness. A technoetic aesthetic is needed which…may enable us as artists to address the key questions of our time.”

Grains of Gold in All This Shift: Web 2.0, Crowdsourcing and Participatory Art
by Amanda Wasielewski
“The Web 2.0 ideas of ‘social networking’ and ‘crowdsourcing’ have filtered through to the art world where artists are, whether consciously or not, using Web 2.0 principles and forms in their work.” Amanda Wasielewski’s critical examination over the recent activities of participatory art both on and offline which “begins to look like crowdsourcing.”

Dynamic screen / room:
by Thore Soneson
“During the last decades moving images, video and screens have expanded from on-the-wall projections to dynamic and multi-modulated images in different spatial settings – on multiple screens, in dynamic and interactive room environments and in an immersive physical context.” Film maker/producer Thore Soneson’s research into the contemporary “dynamic screen” for his project “Journey to Abadyl”.

First Museum Shooters
by Mathias Jansson
“When the small company id Software in Texas, USA, 1993 released the videogame Doom few would have guessed that this game would change the entire game industry, and even fewer would have guessed which impact Doom would have on the art world.” Game Art specialist Mathias Jansson’s article about “museum shooters” in the field of Game Art.

SONOMATERIA: Audio-tactile Composition
by Irad Lee
Irad Lee, sound and interaction designer, “describes the inspiration and implementation of SONOMATERIA, a multi-user sound sculpture, installation, tangible sound interface and intersensory composition,” which “aims to explore the mutual reinforcing effect that the manipulation of tactile and auditory perceptions can have on each other….”

Sound art courses in Sweden

There are at least two courses in sound art for active professionals (e.g. artists, musicians, sound engineers) that might be of interest this year.

The first is a one-year sound art course (M.A., 60 ECTS), at The Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts in Stockholm. The course is arranged in collaboration with EMS, and will be taught in Swedish. The course info is also in Swedish, but with some help from a well-known free online service, I’ve translated it thus:

The master’s programme in sound art is a multi-disciplinary training aimed at professionals who are interested to deepen and explore sound art. The training focuses on sound installation and you will explore how sound can be used in different rooms and on different types of sites.

The purpose of the course is to provide an overview of methods and processes within the sound art field, and an understanding of the role of sound in contemporary art.

The goal is to help you gain knowledge and understanding of sound installation in public and other rooms, and how to use sound as a tool in various types of artistic production. In parallel with ongoing practical production training, we will discuss artistic courage and the ethical approach to working with sound in public places.

The second is a distance learning course in sound art and sound design (15 ECTS), at The Department of Music and Media at Luleå University of Technology in Piteå in Northern Sweden. Since the course info is in Swedish, I guess the course will be taught in Swedish, too. English translation:

The course is for artists and other interested who want to work with sound creation and sound design. Your individual production work is done continuously during the course and is combined with seminars, workshops, lectures, group work and individual supervision. Current events in the sound field may be treated on the course.

During the course you will meet active practitioners as lecturers and at workshops. You will learn about various tools like Pure Data and Audiomulch, solder piezo-electric microphones, work with field recordings and sound installations interspersed with studies of existing sound/sound design-work, and immerse yourself in your own project to be presented at the end of the course.

Four meetings during autumn 2011 and 2-3 meetings in spring 2012, combined with distance learning at any place.

The application deadline for both courses is April 15, 2011. The deadline for the course at the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts has been extended to May 17, 2011.

Electroacoustic music meta-bibliography

The meta-bibliography is available again, in a thoroughly revised and updated version.

(The EAM meta-bibliography is a bibliography of electroacoustic music bibliographies. It is a spin-off from my master’s thesis in library and information science, and covers websites, books and journal articles that list items of interest to EAM composers and researchers.)

New journal: JAR – The journal for artistic research

“The journal for artistic research (JAR) is an international, online, Open Access and peer-reviewed journal for the identification, publication and dissemination of artistic research and its methodologies, from all arts disciplines. The Journal is underpinned by the Research Catalogue (RC), a searchable, documentary database of artistic research work and its exposition, that functions as an inclusive, open-ended, bottom-up research tool supporting the development of the Journal’s academic contributions.”

Issue #0 presents work by:

  • Bertha Bermudez, Scott deLahunta, Marijke Hoogenboom, Chris Ziegler, Frederic Bevilacqua, Sarah Fdili Alaoui, Barbara Meneses Gutierrez, Amsterdam
  • Richard Blythe, Melbourne
  • Sher Doruff, Amsterdam
  • Cathy van Eck, Zürich
  • Mark Fleischman, Cape Town
  • Abhishek Hazra, Bangalore
  • Anders Hultqvist, Gothenburg
  • Daniel Kötter, Constanze Fischbeck, Berlin
  • Tuija Kokkonen, Helsinki
  • Elina Saloranta, Helsinki
  • Sissel Tolaas, Berlin
  • Otto von Busch, Gothenburg

JAR is published by the Society for Artistic Research (SAR). “[SAR] was established in March 2010 as an independent, non-profit organisation for the purpose of publishing JAR.” SAR:s institutional members are art and design schools and universities.

The journal invites submissions. JAR is peer-reviewed, but not the RC.

The journal of music and meaning revamped

In the new issue, no. 9, of The journal of music and meaning, the editors announce that the journal will be published in blog format from now on. Entire issues will not be published at the same time. Instead, papers will appear in the blog when ready. The posts consists of and abstract, the author’s credentials, and a link to the paper in PDF. This is good news, although I find the new format somewhat confusing, perhaps because the new issue lacks a table of contents.

JMM #9 contains some articles of particular interest to readers of this blog:

Some notes from the Lustmord seminar at Audiorama, January 14

Brian Williams, a.k.a Lustmord, resists being pigeonholed, but it’s probably safe to say that Lustmord was instrumental in creating the dark ambient genre in the early 1980’s. During this period, he was also involved with the industrial acts SPK, Throbbing Gristle and Nurse with Wound. Among Lustmord’s most successful records are Heresy (1990), The Place Where the Black Stars Hang (1994), and Stalker (together with Robert Rich, 1995). In 1993, he started working as a sound designer and sometimes composer for motion pictures, e.g. The Crow, From Dusk till Dawn and Underworld. A born Welsh, he now resides in Los Angeles, where he has collaborated with metal bands Tool and Melvins.

Williams began the seminar by playing Lustmord’s very first track, and told us a bit about his childhood and attending art school in the U.K. He continued by playing some examples of his work in movie sound design, which mainly entails providing composers with sound libraries, where the same basic sounds are available in many variants. Ordinary sounds are usually transformed to feel bigger and have more impact. Sounds and music are added during post-production, when the team is short of time and money, so composers and sound designers have to work under heavy time pressure.

Lustmord was started because Williams didn’t hear the music he wanted to hear, but now he never listens to dark ambient, dislikes being imitated, and doesn’t want to collaborate with people doing the same thing as himself. He prefers Kraftwerk and music with a slow groove, like dub and early hip hop.

Williams considers a Lustmord album a single work, not a collection of tracks. Rather than being “dark” or “ambient”, he wants to express a sense of awe and a cosmic world view, where man is insignificant (Williams is an atheist). The records are always based on a specific idea, but he categorically denied seeing pictures in his head when composing: “I work only in sound”. The sound should be big and dynamic, and he uses none or very little compression.

When asked why he so seldom plays live, he answered that it hadn’t been very practical earlier, and that he hadn’t thought that it would be very interesting for an audience, but he changed his mind after seeing Kraftwerk using laptops on stage and after his own performance for Church of Satan in 2006.

Although Williams didn’t seem very eager to speak about his work, and hadn’t prepared his presentation thoroughly, he willingly answered the audience’s questions. He was humble about his accomplishments, and described himself as a ”non-musician”, due to his lack of formal training. He stressed that equipment doesn’t matter, but ideas do, and considers himself to have a punk attitude – “You can do it!” – from the early years spent with Throbbing Gristle, when “punk actually meant something for a year or so”. He stated that punk isn’t a style, but an approach, a way to do something. Perhaps that is the reason why Williams doesn’t want to be associated with a certain genre.

Denna text finns också på svenska hos Nutida Musik.

PhD for Paulina Sundin

Congratulations to Swedish composer Paulina Sundin, who has recently finished her doctoral dissertation, Re-inventing harmony in electroacoustic music : a commentary on my recent music! Here is the abstract:

Re-inventing Harmony in Electroacoustic Music reflects on research regarding structuring pitch-based material in my music written between 1999 and 2010. The selected works illustrates the process leading up to my research based on psychoacoustic consonance and dissonance and my strategies to create a new kind of harmony – a harmony based on concrete sounds with inharmonic spectra.

The discussion will refer to pieces by composers who have worked with harmony based on the analysis of sound spectra; instrumental and mixed works by spectralist composers such as Grisey, Murail and Saariaho and electroacoustic works by Harvey and others.

I will address the importance of research in the psychoacoustic field, in particular, research by William A. Sethares regarding inharmonic spectra and scales and how it has affected my works.

(One can download the dissertation via the link above, although it’s painfully slow, at least right now, and sometimes the download is aborted.)