From Stethoscopes to Headphones: An Acoustic Spatialization of Subjectivity (original) (raw)
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Sound installation: Blurring the boundaries of the Eye, the Ear, Space and Time
Contemporary Music Review, 2006
Sound installation interfaces musical and visual art through time and space. It is a sonic intermedia practice, which blurs the boundaries of the visual and aural and includes the spatial, the temporal and the haptic. Since 1977 I have been designing sound installations that merge the senses, offering unique experiences for the listener as participating auditor. In the discussion of several of these works the conceptual considerations in the design of cross-disciplinary works are addressed. These include the parameters derived from the disciplines of sculpture, sound, temporal composition, spatial architecture and audience interactivity. Some works merge many interdisciplinary elements such as sculptural forms, video, photography, radio and performance as well as sound, while others may appear almost invisible. The degree of musical composition and sound design features vary from work to work. Sound installations are rarely static, having many possible outcomes and many works have a high degree of immersive and interactive characteristics. As such they are difficult to document. This article will look at representative examples of my sound installations since 1977 showing diverse approaches to sound installation. It is a potent artform, which has stretched the boundaries of the disciplines of fine art and music, merging sound, time and space in new ways.
2018
This research project has explored the relationship between sound and sculpture, looking particularly at how sound can become sculptural. A sound sculpture is defined in this project as a sound-only entity, which explicitly extends sound’s physical and spatial aspects to take on the role of a physical, visual sculpture. In this research, this is achieved by the use of otoacoustic emissions. There is a lack of music and sound art material that actively intends to utilise the creative potential of otoacoustic emissions. This portfolio of works explores the bodily sensation of otoacoustic emissions and importantly, the agency the audience/listener has on changing their own perception and experience of the sound through their movement choices around an installation space. This novel application of otoacoustic emissions is what the author terms ‘otokinetic shaping’. This goes beyond that of the visual sculptural paradigm by introducing an element of audience participation and control. Th...
"Acoustic, Visual, and Aural Space: The Quest for Virtual Reality in Musical Reproduction"
Explorations in Media Ecology {EME}, 8(2), 2009
Ever since Edison’s invention of the phonograph, both recordists and listeners have sought a faithful reproduction of the original. But the identity of that “original” is problematic, since all reproduction depends upon playing a trick on the mind. With some notable exceptions, both studio and concert recordings are pastiches of individual tracks, whose aim is to trick the mind into perceiving the performers spread out in an aural space mapped out acoustically from an ideal perspective. But standard stereophonic systems are inherently incapable of putting the listeners in the virtual presence of the performers, since reverberation and other acoustic signatures of the performing environment all come from in front of listeners, rather than emerging from all sides. Digital surround sound aims at fulfilling the dream of recreating performances in a seamless aural space. Digitization has the promise of creating a virtual reality whose hyperrealism depends on manipulating the brain’s adaptive cognitive structures developed over millennia of evolutionary selection. The issues raised by this urge towards transparent reproducibility of the original performance can be explored by applying Walter Benjamin’s critique of the reduction of the “aura” of a work of art in mechanical reproduction. The nature of mobile listening systems subjects them to Benjamin’s critique of the inauthenticity of mechanical reproduction. However, the aims of “high-end” audio reveal the inherent visual bias of Benjamin’s aesthetic, which ignores G. E. Lessing’s distinction between the static and rhythmical arts. Rather than exemplifying a process of mechanical reproduction, the goal of high-end audio is to achieve electromechanical etherialization.
Embodied Sound: Aural Architectures and the Body
Contemporary Music Review, 2006
This article examines two sound installations distributed on CD: Maryanne Amacher’s Sound Characters (Making the Third Ear) (1999) and Bernhard Leitner’s KOPFRAUME (HEADSCAPES) (2003). The author undertakes an embodied reception of these works, experimenting with new models of listening and analysis that take into consideration aspects of the built environment, social spaces and imaginary architectures as these are perceived at the intersection of sound, space and the body. Conceptualizations of space, place and embodiment are engaged; and definitions for sound installation and ‘situated sonic practices’ are offered. The analysis ultimately reveals how the complex, dynamic networks of sound, space, place and embodiment can be understood to produce and constitute one another.
“‘Hearing Deafly’: Reshaping the Geography of Sound in the Body”
The prospect of deaf hearing is a seeming oxymoron borne out of not only the hearing world’s assumption that deafness wholly prevents sound perception, but also the Deaf world’s insistence that sound itself is irrelevant. Former president of the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) George Veditz’s famous 1910 proclamation that deaf people are “first, last and for all time, the people of the eye” remains an imperative in contemporary Deaf culture, a view that often dismisses the relevance of deaf musical expression. This paper negotiates these conflicting ideals by theorizing what I term “hearing deafly,” a multi-sensory, embodied understanding of sound grounded in a deaf perspective. I draw on interviews with members of the Deaf rock band Beethoven’s Nightmare. While a non-deaf person may conceive of the auditory process as dwelling in the ear and auditory nerve, for a deaf person it shifts to the environment of the body. The members of Beethoven’s Nightmare credit their hearing loss with affording a greater sensibility to the vibrations of their musical experiences. One member describes sensing sound through an integration of seeing and feeling, creating what he calls “a sense of vibe to my body.” In the context of hearing deafly, an awareness of embodied vibration allows these deaf musicians to be conscious of the interconnections between people and sounds. I argue that such a sense informs our understanding of how music and sound create a sense of shared presence between the musicking participants, deaf or hearing. Decentering the ears from the hearing process draws attention to certain assumptions surrounding hearing and sound that are rooted in our culturally conditioned aural-normativity, that is, the idea that sound experiences are ear-centered. Similarly, the primacy of vision in Deaf culture risks overshadowing deaf multi-sensory engagements with sound. Reshaping the geography of sound in the bodily environment expands the boundaries of musical perception, opening our understanding of musical experience that blurs the binaries between deaf and hearing. Hearing deafly cuts across cultural-linguistic and audiological divisions to articulate an aspect of musical experience that is available to all bodies.
This article reappraises and develops Marshall McLuhan’s theory of ‘Auditory Space’ as a critical tool for interrogating emergent, immersive modes of new media performance. Commonalities in the practise of Erwin Piscator, Steve Reich and Beryl Korot are explored, specifically in their respective applications of technology as a means by which to re-present historical events and document lived experiences with political intent. Contemporary views on historiography and historicity are explored and contextualised with respect to postmodern theory. A performance of Steve Reich and Beryl Korot’s Three Tales is analysed, in the light ‘auditory space’, with reference to ways in which Three Tales evoke collective memory, to raise political concerns and issues of authenticity and to affect the spectator. Each of these practitioners use contemporaneous technologies to communicate to audiences of their day in ways that suit the tenor and technological environment of their times. These notions are briefly discussed from a historical perspective in relation to theatrical stagings that operate different approaches to illusion or anti-illusion. I draw on Jacques Derrida’s theories of deconstruction and his critique of Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty. The affective potential of music is assessed using phenomenology as a means through which to describe perceptual modes encountered in multi-channelled performance.
With one eye on: Viewing a sound installation
The Soundtrack, 2010
In recent years, the term 'sound installation' has been created and deployed to describe a variety of interdisciplinary artwork that, in one way or another, involves the phenomenon of sound. Sometimes, we encounter a piece of sound installation that seeks to heighten our auditory experience by removing any visual references. 1 More often, we 'see' a piece of sound installation that incorporates visual elements that may or may not have direct relationship to the sound itself. It can be listened to through headphones to create an intimate relationship with the viewer/listener. Or it can be presented in a cacophonous manner that drives some viewers/listeners away whilst appealing to others. In any case, there is always the role of space that hosts the existence of sound. The concept of space can be seen as one of the fundamental elements within the art of sight and sound. Therefore, in this article, by reflecting upon my own practice, I will explore the concept of space within the structure of sound installation, and the interdependent relationship of elements of sight and sound by drawing upon the tradition of electro-acoustic music and installation art.