Audio Arts

Acousmatic sound art production has as its goal a transformation of recognizable recorded sound samples into new relations, effectively hiding the origin of the raw material so as to focus on an experience of pure sound.  The author defines the "live" as the "life" from which these samples are pulled, and considers the ways in which the biography of the sample troubles acousmatic art.
From special issue Why Live? ed. Nicolas Collins

La ressemblance par contact de Georges Didi-Huberman entreprend une archéologie de l’empreinte comme geste fondateur de l’image et comme paradigme de la forme en art. On envisage à notre tour une pratique du sonore comme naissant elle aussi du processus et des procédures de l’empreinte. L’analyse des techniques de captation et d’enregistrement révèle ce qui survit de cette pratique archaïque dans les dispositifs des arts audio, et pose les bases d’un questionnement du sonore électronique et numérique comme art de l’image. Cet article fut rédigé au début de la recherche doctorale de l'auteure et il pose ainsi, bien qu'encore imparfaitement, une des intuitions fortes de sa thèse soutenue en février 2017 et intitulée : Le son plastique : empreindre le flux et l'inouï. Sonification et audification dans les pratiques installatives (2017).

Perhaps it’s obvious; if we take radio out of radio art then we usually have a sound based art work that is not broadcasted, unicasted and/or multicasted; conversely if we take the ‘art’ out of radio art then we have radio (in all of its conventional formats) ... but do we have radio art if we simply combine radio and art?

This paper explores the idea of radio art as a media based acoustic art form and argues that the Australian works Journal (1969) by David Ahern and Quadrophonic Cocktail (1986) by Chris Mann are forms of acoustic media art.

Further to this, it asks is there a role for radio art in education?

Online audio drama creates the potential not just for new forms and patterns of listening (on-demand and audience controlled) or for revised methods of plot structuring (with series stacking allowing for the use of extended narrative arcs) but of a complete re-creation of the listening experience as being part of an act of transmedia storytelling – one in which the narrative spins out of the fictive realm and overlays the ‘lived’ experience of the listener.

This paper will discuss the opportunities that have been opened up for writers and producers of radio drama through the development of online and downloadable audio. It will discuss the use of both social media tools and diverse media platforms in the construction of story in which the membrane between the real and fictive has become permeable. It will focus on the author’s ongoing work on The Flickerman a piece of applied creative research that began as an attempt to explore the possibilities offered to writers by working outside conventional radio networks, and has developed into a piece of as-live, collaborative, open-source story telling.

Aujourd'hui, on doit se rendre compte, un peu partout, car je le répète depuis près d'un demi-siècle au risque d'importuner les gens, que mon but a toujours été la libération du son et d'ouvrir largement à la musique tout l'univers des sons. J'ai commencé très jeune à enfreindre les règles, conscient même alors qu'elles m'empêchaient d'accéder à ce monde merveilleux-cet Univers en perpétuel expansion. Edgard Varèse-1939 1 Faire violence à la musique Parmi les influences diffuses et globales devenues arrière-fond de la création sonore au vingt-et-unième siècle, Edgard Varèse se trouve encore aujourd'hui régulièrement cité comme une des principales figures tutélaires dans laquelle se retrouvent nombre d'artistes du son. Comme certains autres acteurs historiques-tels Alexandre Mossolov, Georges Antheil ou Luigi Russolo pour la première partie du vingtième siècle en particulier, mais tout autant John Cage ou Erik Satie-Varèse reste un jalon marquant par le rôle inédit qu'il donne à l'activité musicale dans son époque, et ce d'une façon qui lui est propre. Le portrait que nous gardons de Varèse aujourd'hui est celui d'une force de l'imagination qui a fait violence à la musique. Par la volonté d'un individu qui se dresse face aux conventions, l'activité musicale devient un acte de différenciation radicale et se fantasme comme création de son propre paradigme. Le geste varésien demeure celui de cet affranchissement de la musique, de cet effort pour la porter au-delà de ses propres règles : plus loin que la note vers la beauté de la matière sonore, plus loin que l'espace harmonique vers les promesses de l'espace myriaphonique de l'écoute. Au fil des témoignages des créateurs actuels, on comprend que Varèse n'a pas seulement réalisé une oeuvre originale faisant date dans les livres d'histoire. Il a contribué sa vie durant, dans sa confrontation aux technologies naissantes du vingtième siècle, à rendre performatives les potentialités de médiums dont l'impact sociohistorique n'était pas encore envisagé : potentialités techniques médiatrices d'un bouleversement plus profond. En ce sens, l'action de Varèse constitue historiquement une des amorces principales du glissement des conceptions musicales, et pourrait se reconnaître comme une origine majeure de la diffraction des pratiques sonores qui nous entourent aujourd'hui, indistinctement savantes et populaires, musicales et non-musicales. Dans le moment même où son action créatrice actualisait l'affirmation d'une personnalité indéniablement charismatique, elle paraît avoir concouru au déplacement tellurique d'une épistémê que l'on pouvait, et pourrait encore croire fixe et connue : celle de la musique. Au lendemain du prophète Aujourd'hui, que l'on observe la musique contemporaine, les tenants des musiques improvisées 1 1 Edgard Varèse, Causerie prononcée lors du séminaire d'études musicales avancées de Princeton, in Georges Charbonnier, Entretiens avec Edgard Varèse, éditions Pierre Belfond, Paris, 1970, p. 83.

Form in sound art is the crucial aspect for both analysis and per- ception. The theoretical basis includes, among others, the theory of ‘Pure Form’ devised by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz and Susan Sontag’s theory of interpretation. Later in the text, issues of aesthetics and anti-aesthetic are mentioned. The research questions dealt with in this text were: What is the position of form in sound art and how is it related to content? What kinds of means of expression can be applied? The employed methods in- clude literary analysis and criticism as well as some elements of structural analysis. The examples analyzed in this article were broadcasts by Gregory Whitehead, Eugeniusz Rudnik, Tomasz Plata, and Antye Greie. The per- ception of the art can be disturbed by certain means of expression such as formal chaos or noise which is also considered in the text.

Textual documentation of an audio work made for Marion Harrison’s Short Fuse radio broadcast (Marion Harrison, Short Fuse, 2010.
Included: Constant Dullart (NL), Ahmet Öğüt (TK), Derek Horton (UK), Avi Krispin (IL), Rory Macbeth (UK), Alan Dunn (UK), Rachel Reupke (UK), Harold Offeh (UK), Åsa Andersson (SW)

This was the first manifestation of a project that has occupied me intermittently for several years. I have been ‘collecting’ the manufactured objects referred to in the abstractions of philosophical and theoretical texts. I am interested in the extent to which even the most densely abstract thought is dependent upon the metaphorical and illustrative use of not just the material world but the manufactured world for its understanding. The products of the human mind, even as purely philosophical ideas, are thus always dependent on the products of human labour.

Experiment as a radio genre
The main aim of this article is to describe the nature of radio experiment, its genre pattern and relations with modern radio art and to define the ruling principles of this form. Literature Theory, journalism genres (both press and radio), genre’s pattern theory will be the referring points for this study.  Radio experiment can be understood as an autonomic radio genre, even though it is a very complex and internally diverse form. Experimental forms have been always outside of the mainstream radio research although they had an influence on the development of radio genres in the past and their contemporary form. This article describes the matters of structure, aesthetics and non-aesthetics in the field of audio experiment.
Streszczenie
Celem tego artykułu jest wyjaśnienie istoty eksperymentu audialnego, określenie jego związku z innymi gatunkami radiowymi, współczesną sztuką audialną oraz sformułowanie praw rządzących eksperymentem fonicznym i jego wyznaczników gatunkowych. W badaniu eksperymentu posłużę się opracowaniami literaturoznawczymi, które będą stanowić dla mnie punkt odniesienia teoretycznego. Ze względu na próbę określenia eksperymentu jako gatunku, metodą, którą wybrałam, jest radioznawcze podejście genologiczne z wykorzystaniem wzorca gatunkowego. Eksperyment radiowy może być traktowany jako autonomiczny, mimo wewnętrznego zróżnicowania, realizacje wykazują pewne cechy wspólne. Formy eksperymentalne znajdowały się na marginesie badań radioznawczych, mimo że miały duży wpływ na rozwój i oceny kształt klasycznych gatunków audialnych. Artykuł omawia również kwestie struktury, estetyki i antyestetyki radiowych dzieł eksperymentalnych.

This essay investigates the figure of the author and the concept of authorship in audio mashups and remixing. The analysis traces the development and functional aspects of this particular authority figure, entertains the recent crisis in authorship that has led to claims of the “death of the author,” and investigates the way both aspects shape our understanding of and responses to the mashup. The objective of the investigation is not to provide an authoritative account that will decide things once and for all. Instead, it concludes with a more sophisticated understanding of how the question concerning authorship needs to be situated and deployed.

L'expérimentation a toujours lieu au présent. Elle incarne et désigne le pas vers l'inconnu, l'acte de confiance, sans promesse. Elle suppose dans le même temps la préexistence d'un univers vis-à-vis duquel est effectué ce pas, cet écart, généralement prémisse à l'extension du territoire d'où l'expérimentateur effectue son saut dans l'inconnu. L'expérimentation est un processus de dépassement commun non seulement à tous les arts mais à toutes les activités humaines. La dynamique du vécu passe continuellement par l'expérimentation, depuis les actes les plus insignifiants jusqu'aux décisions les plus importantes.

The author provides a first-hand account, as a founding editor of Tellus Audio Cassette Magazine and contributing writer with Punctum Press, of his discovery of the early noise music of Minóy (pseudonym of the sound artist Stanley Keith Bowsza), and its significance within the history of Machine Art.

Um estudo de textos inéditos e publicados de Pierre Schaeffer do período compreendido entre 1932 e 1952 sobre as artes deficientes e as artes relé, situando estas noções no contexto do desenvolvimento das idéias de Schaeffer e colocando o trabalho de Schaeffer em relação com a história da França sob Vichy.

Dieser Text begleitet die Ausstellung "Chantal Maquet. Dat huet jo näischt mat mir ze dinn / Das hat ja nichts mit mir zu tun" im Centre d'art. Ville de Dudelange. Nei Liicht, die vom 06. März-11. April 2021, in Dudelange (Luxemburg) stattfindet.
Die Künstlerin Chantal Maquet nimmt ihre eigenen Familiengeschichte in den Blick, um mit Malerei, Video und Audioinstallation das Themenfeld Kolonialismus und Rassismus zu beleuchten. Dabei hinterfragt sie ihre eigene Rolle als weiße Europäerin. Sie greift auf Fotos und Filme aus dem Archiv ihrer Großeltern zurück, die zeitweise im Kongo (damals belgische Kolonie) gelebt haben. Und sie verfolgt die Ausläufer des Kolonialimus nach Luxemburg bis in die heutige Zeit. Die Herausforderung, als Weiße über Rassimuserfahrungen zu arbeiten, begegnet sie durch Gespräche mit betroffenen Luxemburgerinnen und Luxemburgern.
Der Text stellt die nicht-sichtbaren Verbindungen der Arbeiten mit der Familie der Künstlerin her und setzt das Thematisierte mit Wahrnehmungsphänomenen der Psychologie in Zusammenhang. Darüber hinaus schlägt er den Bogen zu den Debatten, die die Künstlerin mit ihren Arbeiten anreißt: Umgang mit afrikanischem Kunsthandwerk, wirtschaftliche Realität in Cobalt-Minen sowie die Frage, wie Rassismus funktioniert.

From our forthcoming special issue, Geospatial Memory (Media Theory Media Theory 2/1), Matthew Flintham describes the immersive, location-based urban experiences as well as the uncanny and unexpected psychological responses of users of geolocative media. Abstract This paper will describe BATTERCTRAX, an experimental geolocative media project undertaken during 2014. It examines the possibility that cinematic media (in this case audio from films) can be repurposed within an immersive, mobile heritage guide. The paper will describe the project in broad terms but will focus on certain unexpected and unusual perceptual effects generated during the test phase of the project. BATTERCTRAX began as an adjunct to a larger academic initiative called Cinematic Geographies of Battersea: Urban Interface and Site-Specific Spatial Knowledge, a collaboration between Liverpool, Cambridge and Edinburgh Universities and English Heritage. Amongst many outcomes, Cine-matic Geographies built a comprehensive database of films shot in the London district of Battersea, which created ways to mobilise historic moving images for the analysis of social and material change in cities. As a tangential outcome of this project, BATTERCTRAX was a mobile phone app that played audio content from feature films, documentaries and TV shows at the places where they were originally recorded. The user would walk through clusters of GPS-enabled ge-ofences in the test zone of Battersea Park, triggering a succession of historic cinematic sounds from across the 20 century. However, by anchoring fictional audio content to the places of their origin, BATTERCTRAX appeared to create a sense of dissonance between sensory stimulants, destabilising a sense of perceptual cohesion in the user. These novel effects lead the researchers to speculate that such technology could not only be used to construct highly immersive, location based urban experiences, but that it could also trigger psychoactive effects in ways that media developers and users had not anticipated. This paper will propose that geolocative media has the ability to tap into unexplored realms of " collective " cultural memory, but can also elicit unexpected psychological and perceptual responses.

In this review-essay, Virginia Madsen enters the polyphonous 'limbo zone of transmissions' created by Gregory Whitehead's most recent 'performed documentary' and radio provocation, "On the shore dimly seen". This composed voicing, drawn from verbatim texts courtesy of WikiLeaks and the dysfunctionality of America's Guantanamo Bay, is heard as a fortuitous chance encounter with a medium – and as an increasingly rare listening 'detour' while Madsen is on the road. This essay is thus both a reflection upon the nature of the radio offered here, the chance listening experience to work of this kind, and upon the distinctive body of work created over more than 30 years by this American performance and radio artist. Digging down into this new radio 'no play' as she calls it, a 'forensic theatre' and convocation created by Whitehead for international audiences, and drawing on her interviews with the artist and other research and critical interactions, Madsen aims to sound out this work's greater depths and to connect us to some of the unlikely voices which still haunt its 'woundscape'.

Walking in the City. Hidden Sounds and Mobile Places is a miniature for mobiles by Fritz Schlüter, inspired by Michel de Certeau’s seminal text “Walking in the City”, based on the radio aporee app by Udo Noll.

“The act of walking is to the urban system what the speech act is to language. It is a process of appropriation of the topographical system on the part of the pedestrian (just as the speaker appropriates and takes on the language); it is a spatial acting-out of the place (just as the speech act is an acoustic acting-out of language).” (Michel de Certeau)

“Walking in the City. Hidden Sounds and Mobile Places” is a sound art installation in public space, accessible via a customised smartphone app. Listeners are invited to explore and appropriate an area of hidden sounds–and to compose their own radio play by walking.

“Walking in the City. Hidden Sounds and Mobile Places” was created and presented in September 2013 as an exceptional soundwalk for the KOSMOS Summer University 2013 “Modern Walking. Innovative Urban Mobility”.

See https://www.interdisciplinary-laboratory.hu-berlin.de/en/content/1147/KOSMOS-Summer-University-2013-Modern-Walking-Innovative-Urban-Mobility

This paper explores the creative soundworlds of the radio medium as utilised by a range of practitioners to create art (i.e. radio art). It investigates a sample of previously published concepts, theories and practices, which are contextualised against the author’s own current qualitative research and professional practice.