What is Sound Art for me?
Dance, industry, apps, film, acousmatic, ecology, radio, game, animation, mixing, instrument design, immersive media
The three choices we have for next years Sounds Arts course are:
Specialisation, sound for screen and expanded studio practice.
Suzanne Ciani (1946)
Suzanne Ciani was a practitioner of Buchla synthesis, this was a style of electronic music creation formed mostly from modular synths in a performative and abstract way.
Her music is really well toned to a happy feeling, I like her performances in quadraphonic format. She uses space as a compositional tool in her performances, she has good spacial vocabulary.
M108
We went through the specs of room M108, Milo talked through the plug in and run ins off the 8 channel speakers in room 108. I was refreshing to be able to understand how it works, he played some of Ciani (1946) in a 5.1 format. A 5.1 format I found out is a front left and right plus a back left and right with a subs speaker in the middle. It is what is frequently what’s used in cinemas for surround sound.
Sound for visual
We watched a scene from Gravity (2013) and a snippet of a scene from Blade Runner (1982) in this 5.1 format. The difference surround speakers have are incredible, the subwoofer creates a beautiful addition to the ambiance sound for visual if its subtle. “Films are like a long soundtrack with visual attached”.
Serialism – Tonality isn’t used to try and move away from the classic vocabulary. It was very reflective of its time as it was a reflection of the end of the World War in Germany, it is violent at times as there can be something undemocratic about tonal music.
Something about just making music just making music is beautiful. music dousing always need a purpose. Just making music is a meaning, music can ebb and flow on its own. This is called absolute music.
John Chowning (1934)
John Chowning (1934) is an American musical composer that was a crucial part to the creation of FM (Frequency Modulation) synthesis. Frequency Modulation is a technique that enable rich timbres and tone to be formed from algorithms.
Chowning (1934) also gave light to this idea of specialisation. He stimulated his sound in a three dimensional space, he gave the idea of sound moving in 360 degree space using four speakers. He bridged the gap between experimental and music.
Pastiche composition
Pastiche in art refers to the imitation of another art work, this can be to play homage or to ask as a sort of parody but it always has a degree of recognition to the original artwork.
An example of pastiche art are:
Andy Warhol’s “Mona Lisa” (1963):
When talking about sound art, pastiche composition would refer to a sample or mash up of music, for example Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve is great example of taking an imitation of a sound and recontexulising it in a different frame
Collage in music:
- Mashing up tapes from different band, cultures and genres
- self sampling, you can sample your own work
The main question we are look at here is where or not art aim is to please or to be owned and institutionalised, in my opinion its both. You have to be happy to share your art but not for someone to steal it, you want credit for the fruits of your labour. I guess as artist we are interested in many different opposing things, so a mash up or collage is an expression of this
Christian Marclay
Christian work at The Tate, is great example of sound as an event happening within time. His work is an example of the presents of time with art, it make you feel present and in the moment. This is a lovely bit of sound art as it depicts the different between sound as an event and sound as a space, I look inline at his work and was impressed by the scale of this project.
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