Sound Art

What Lies Beyond the Darkness investigates how a creative sound and land-based art practice can position humans as an active part of any given ecological system; equal to ‘other’ natural and non-human co-habitants. This practice-based research aims to discover how to frame or heighten natural environments to facilitate a focused mode of listening and perceiving that can encourage audiences to emotionally respond to an environment. This will be achieved through the use of; existing natural environments such as nature reserves, public parks, and national parks; aesthetic interventions including outlined paths, mirrored partitions, sheer partitions, and contemplative signage; written guides; and audience surveying. This research contributes to a community of practice including sound and land artists that consider investigations into and creative work regarding environmental conservation and rehabilitation a major and timely concern.

Based on the author's artistic research on migration, contemporary urban experience, and sonic alienation, The Nomadic Listener is composed of a series of texts stemming from psychogeographic explorations of contemporary cities, including Copenhagen, Berlin, Kolkata, Vienna, Delhi, Hong Kong, Mumbai, and New York, among others.
Each text is an act of listening, where the author records his surrounding environment and attunes to the sonic fluctuations of movement and the passing of events. What surfaces is a collection of meditations on the occurrences of life movingly interwoven with memories, associations, desires, and reflections. Readers are brought into a tender map of contemporary urban experience and the often lonely, surprising, and random interactions found in traveling. The Nomadic Listener includes parallel drawings based on the original audio recordings and appears as ghostly renderings of the corresponding experiences. The recordings are published by Gruenrekorder and accessed through a QR code in the book.

Przysługujący widmom wywrotowy, niemalże rewolucyjny potencjał został odsunięty oraz zagubiony poprzez pozbycie się tej kontrowersyjnej kategorii z terytorium metafizyki i zbyt pośpieszne odesłanie jej do przestrzeni badań nad literaturą, sprowadzając ją jedynie do roli użytecznego, bezpiecznego narzędzia interpretacji.

Książka Andrzeja Marca odzyskuje niepokojący charakter widmontologii i ponownie wprowadza widma do myśli metafizycznej. Czym nawiedzona i przeniknięta jest tradycyjna metafizyka, co właściwie ją dręczy, nie daje spokoju oraz nieustannie podmywa jej stabilność?

Kategoria widma Derridy posłużyła Marcowi przede wszystkim do rozważań nad charakterem współczesności i przeobrażeń, jakie dokonały się w obrębie myśli ponowoczesnej. Współczesna kultura, zdaniem Marca, stała się miejscem powstawania widm, nieustannie powracających z przeszłości. Uznając, że nie jesteśmy już w stanie tworzyć utopijnych wizji przyszłości, autor stara się zdać sprawę z widmowego charakteru współczesnej kultury, analizując m. in. strategie vintage, retro, nurt no future w kulturze lat 70. czy nurt fantastyki naukowej w literaturze.

I have been working in the field of radio art, and through creative practice have been considering how the convergence of new media technologies has redefined radio art, addressing the ways in which this has extended the boundaries of the art form. This practice-based research explores the rich history of radio as an artistic medium and the relationship between the artist and technology, emphasising the role of the artist as a mediator between broadcast institutions and a listening public. It considers how radio art might be defined in relation to sound art, music and media art, mapping its shifting parameters in the digital era and prompting a consideration of how radio appears to be moving from a dispersed ‘live’ event to one consumed ‘on demand’ by a segmented audience across multiple platforms. Exploring the implications of this transition through my radio practice focuses upon the productive tensions which characterise the artist’s engagement with radio technology, specifically between the autonomous potentialities offered by the reappropriation of obsolete technology and the proliferation of new infrastructures and networks promised by the exponential development of new media. Switch Off takes as its overarching theme the possible futures for FM radio, incorporating elements from eight ‘trace’ stations, produced as a series of radio actions investigating these tensions. Interviews have been conducted with case study subjects Vicki Bennett, Anna Friz, LIGNA, Hildegard Westerkamp and Gregory Whitehead, whose work was chosen as being exemplary of the five recurrent facets of radio arts practice I have identified: Appropriation, Transmission, Activism, Soundscape and Performance. These categories are derived from the genealogy of experimental radiophonic practice set out in Chapter One.

El tratamiento y la exploración de los aspectos espaciales y dimensionales del sonido y su cuestionamiento, es un objetivo para la experimentación e investigación creativa con los elementos sonoros, convirtiéndose así en procedimientos ya habituales de manifestar el sonido como forma artística, independiente de la exclusivamente musical. Estas maneras de explorarlo han sido enmarcadas dentro de un tipo de arte sonoro, encontrándonos así una diversidad de propuestas, respuestas y resoluciones muy diferentes, pero que mantienen en común el tratamiento o mirada hacia su espacio y su dimensión, y que bajo intereses e intenciones comunes dentro del arte contemporáneo, se han ido integrando adecuadamente en él.

Se plantea así, un tratamiento de estos aspectos, propiedades referenciales muy cercano al pensamiento de John Cage, que planteaba además de la incorporación de los ruidos a la música, una noción de sonido expandido (noción equiparable a la evolución expansiva de otras artes) a partir de la incorporación sensible y conceptual de la espacialidad y la visualidad al campo sonoro, y también por su consideración del amplio universo de nuevos sonidos, que potencialmente, se abriría con el advenimiento de la electrónica a la música.

La necesidad de organizar, estructurar y contextualizar estos aspectos referenciales del sonido tiene por objeto fundamentar y centrar el trabajo experimental realizado y que se ha desarrollado en torno a ellos, por lo que la tesis que presentamos, tiene dos partes diferenciadas:
Una primera, en la que se contextualizan los dos ejes fundamentales considerados: el espacio y la dimensión sonora, tratando sus conceptos, aspectos y propiedades, así como sus manifestaciones artísticas consideradas más relevantes, desde el punto de vista de una observación tomada como referencia de la experimentación presentada.
Una segunda, en la que se presentan las experimentaciones y obras personales más significativas realizadas durante los últimos once años.

This project presents a model to sonify data. It uses a multichannel audio system to create a spatial illusion of the presence of the sound source. This in order to present with a way of translating information from other domains into sound, at the same time that the spatial position conveys information also from this data.

The field of electroacoustic presents a number of potential challenges to assumptions about what Western art music is: as John Cage noted as early as 1937, it opens up the entire field of sound as musical sources. Barry Truax states that "the serious use of environmental sound in music is potentially disruptive and even subversive to the established norms of the artistic field" (1995: 1). Electroacoustic music can shift attention from pitch relationships to timbral possibilities of sounds. As a result, much electroacoustic music confounds traditional forms of musical analysis (Tenney 1986: 4). Soundscape composition, with its focus on environmental sound, could be considered a type of electroacoustic music that is particularly resistant to traditional analysis and categorization. I will limit my discussion here to the place of the serious use of environmental sound (which I will refer to as soundscape composition) within the field of electroacoustic music, since this will give me a manageable field to consider. Electroacoustic music is a specific genre of Western Art music which has developed only in the last hundred years or so, requiring extensive financial expenditure for equipment and therefore practised — at least until recently — mostly by people in industrialized nations, in large publicly or commercially funded studios. My discussion of the place of soundscape composition within the field of electroacoustic music will raise issues that also apply to the larger field of Western art music, while retaining a focus on the norms of electroacoustic music. The discussion will be in three parts: (1) what is meant by the phrase "the serious use of environmental sound," (2) what are the established norms of electroacoustic music, and (3) To what extent does soundscape composition in itself disrupt or subvert these norms? 1. The serious use of environmental sound The concept of an environment of sound is the basis of the word "soundscape," a term credited to composer R. Murray Schafer. He defines it as: The sonic environment. Technically, any portion of the sonic environment regarded as a field for study. The term may refer to actual environments, or to abstract constructions such as musical compositions and tape montages, particularly when considered as an environment. (1977: 275) By sonic environment, Schafer is referring to "the ever-present array of noises, pleasant and unpleasant, loud and soft, heard or ignored, that we all live with" (1977: jacket notes). This acceptance of all sounds is similar to that of John Cage, who said that the use of electrical instruments "will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard" (1961: 4). Recording equipment makes any sound in the world available: it can be isolated from its context and treated as a sound object, or the interplay of sounds within a specific environmental context can be the focus of attention. Schafer's statement in his definition that abstract constructions such as musical compositions are soundscapes particularly when considered as an environment refers to the importance of context in soundscape composition. Barry Truax clarifies what the importance of context means: In the soundscape composition ... it is precisely the environmental context that is preserved, enhanced and exploited by the composer. The listener's past experience, associations, and patterns of soundscape perception are called upon by the composer and thereby integrated within the compositional strategy. Part of the composer's intent may also be to enhance the listener's awareness of environmental sound. (1984: 207) Truax concentrates on the importance to the composer of the experiences, awareness and perceptions of listeners, and their relationships to the sound environment. These become an integral part of the compositional strategy. Hildegard Westerkamp also defines soundscape composition as a form that insists on contact between the composer, listener and sound environment: "The word soundscape always implies interaction between environment and individual, and between environment and community" (1988: 3). Thus the serious use of environmental sound, according to these composers, is to work with the environment of the sounds, their context and interrelationships with listeners and with the composer.

This paper provides a brief survey of composition in which field recordings or other referential sounds are transcribed for acoustic instruments. Through a discussion of how electroacoustic music and scholarship has conceptualised the notion of mimesis, and how various forms of contemporary acoustic music have adopted electroacoustic techniques, it identifies a recent musical practice in which these concerns are brought together. The paper proposes the term mimetic instrumental resynthesis as a way of describing the common threads behind works that employ electronic-assisted or computer-assisted techniques toward instrumental imitations of environmental and extra-musical sounds. The paper also highlights some of the conceptual and aesthetic questions emerging from such a practice, including the idea of transformation, issues of referentiality, listening, the influence of different technologies and their aesthetic implications, and the tension between abstract and concrete conceptions of the works discussed. Finally, the paper raises concerns surrounding the language of discussing what is necessarily an interdisciplinary venture.


We take stock of engagements occurring between ‘music’ and ‘environment’ and what this heralds for current and future music making and musicology. We consider  ve contemporary and emerging  elds of interest that variously connect these two keywords: 1) music as commemoration or evocation of place; 2) soundscape studies and sound art; 3) acoustic ecology, ecomusicology, and environmental activism; 4) environmental ethnomusicology, archaeomusicology, zoömusicology, and biomusicology; and 5) music and its technological environment. Intersections of the two concepts are on the increase, particularly as composers, performers, and musicologists attempt to respond to matters of climate change, sustainability, and environmental collapse in novel and meaningful ways.

Творча діяльність із використанням звукових технологій в сфері музичного мистецтва є об’єктом усе більшого числа досліджень. Утворена розвитком технологій та сучасних мистецьких практик така
форма людської творчості втілюється у різних спеціалізаціях від звукового дизайну до музичного аранжування та звукорежисури.
Вже існуючі наукові праці тільки підтверджують обсяг об’єкту дослідження: серед авторів цієї проблематики: Д. Гібсон, Є. Давиденкова, Н. Дворко, В. Дінов, П. Ігнатов, Ю. Козюренко, А. Севашко, Ф. Ньюелл, В. Шликов, а також Н. Бєлявіна, О. Бут, І. Гайденко, В. Грищенко, В. Козлін, С. Лазарєв, К. Черевко, С. Шип, С. Шустов тощо.

Arachnid Orchestra. Jam Sessions, Cosmic Jive: The Spider Sessions and the Cosmic Dust Web Orchestra are pioneering and visionary projects by artist Tomás Saraceno that fold his long-term research on spider webs into the realm of vibration and sound, to develop playful and experimental systems for interspecies communication. Working at the intersection of art, architecture and science, for these projects Saraceno transformed spider webs into musical instruments that play upon the incredible structural and mechanical properties of spider silk, and also tune into the spider’s sophisticated forms of vibrational communication. Exhibited at Saraceno’s first solo show in SE-Asia at the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art in Singapore, Arachnid Orchestra. Jam Sessions was developed in collaboration with experts from various fields of knowledge—and extends upon Saraceno’s earlier bioacoustic projects. With this interdisciplinary team, Saraceno created a musical system for translating the spiders’ vibrations into acoustic rhythms: amplifying the spiders’ biotremological signals and web pluckings, and making these substrate-borne vibrations audible to humans. During the exhibition, musicians and sonic artists were invited to attune and respond to the spiders’ vibrational signals through the multispecies instruments that Saraceno created via three live performances (jam sessions), creating a collective and immersive interspecific orchestral composition. The exhibition space was thus transformed into an interactive sound and visual installation: a process-driven laboratory for experimentation that pushed the boundaries of interspecies communication. During the First International Symposium on Biotremology in San Michele all’Adige, sonic excerpts from Arachnid Orchestra. Jam Sessions were played to a scientific audience.

It is noticeable that Square Victoria is a vivid public space with special characteristics that make it different from the other athenian squares. The characteristics that I focus on are; the fragmentation of square, meaning the creation of different and isolated social spaces, and the powerless approach of female visitors. Their absence from square’s public sphere leads to the weakness of their voice, as murmurings and small groups -like in the diagrams, and their short-term presence.
Based on these observations and conclusions, I worked with the medium of sound installation and actions [sound acts] as interventional practice in space. An audible representation of women directed by me, was inserted into existing conversations at the square. The intention of recorded voices’ interference was to create contact points between the separated (by gender, race and social status) public spheres of the square, causing new encounters, interactions and discussions. The designed sound acts were developed in two phases; the first concerns the correlation actions, that I did and recorded, with women coming to the square and the collection of the archived audible material derived from them. The second phase is about the interactive sound installation and the broadcasting of the audio in the space of the square, during the sound installation and action designed and implemented by me. The broadcast action is part of the new correlations and confrontations occured in the chosen social spaces.

“Divinazioni/Divinations” the artist in residence program born in 2012 in Sicily and curated by Giusi Diana, arises from the need to combine contemporary art, archeology, visual and aural landscape, aesthetic and technological innovation.
The italian and international artists of the three editions have been invited, according to a dynamic view of history, to give life to a contemporary view of the extraordinary archeological sites of the Temples Valley of Agrigento. An interdisciplinary model of residences, innovative and experimental, has had the dual purpose of expanding the fields of interest of two types of audience, that of contemporary art and that of archeology, providing artists the chance to live un unconventional experience far from the usual circuits of contemporary art, and encouraging a process of reflection on the past to actualize the History. The artists of “Divinazioni/Divinations” Domenico Sciajno and Sergio Zavattieri in the first edition, Laboratorio Saccardi in the second and Alterazioni Video in the firth, in the suspended time wich has been the residency, they have been worked to a freely creative site-specific project, emerged from a truly extraordinary suggestion of the place. The result of this process is shown in the three final exhibitions in Villa Aurea.

Born in 1964, Pierre Jolivet aka Paciic 231 is a French artist living in Ireland. He has been composing music for a long time, has released a huge number of pieces and recordings and adopted a wide, ever-changing and evolving range of sub-genres. He found the roots of his early works in noise and industrial sounds, never leaving a certain inspiration in noise structures. A few years ago, he began to make more experiments with sound generators and field recordings of various kinds as well as sensor technology. Discovering the magic of abstract arrangements, self-generated processed art and electronic sound collages also led him to co-operate with other artists such as Lieutenant Caramel, Vox Populi! or Rapoon. He’s also a performer and presented his multimedia artwork in MACBA (Barcelona) or the Beirut Art Center (Lebanon).

The definition of sonification has been reframed in recent years but remains somewhat in flux; the basic concepts and procedural flows have remained relatively unchanged. Recent definitions have focused on the objective the important uses of sonification in terms of scientific method. The full realization of the potential of the field must also include the craft and art of music composition. The author proposes examining techniques of sonification in a two-order framework: direct and procedural. The impact of new technologies and historical roots of that work argues that framing this broad topic should be in terms inclusive of scientific method and craftsmanship and art. The expressive use of sonic time-based data flows needs to be refined and expanded. The unexamined territory of how a broad-based population of listeners on a subjective, as well as objective level needs, have to be included in this new field.

This essay introduces a large and diverse special issue on 'The Acoustics of Justice: Law, Listening, Sound'. Until recently the acoustic dimensions of law and justice were not a major concern in the academy, either in self-consciously legal scholarship, or elsewhere. Things are changing, as indeed the size of this collection suggests. And our hope is that the work gathered here will go some way to addressing this deficit. Nevertheless, this introduction does not attempt to theorise how. Though the collection was conceived in 2019, it was mostly produced since the arrival of COVID-19. And we are tired. We have been working from home too long; or rather our homes have been 'requisitioned' for work. Our teaching loads have increased and the teaching itself rapidly onlined. All while separated from loved ones and attempting to school or otherwise entertain our kids at home. And we are the lucky ones. This introduction is, in a sense, an anti-introduction, or a non-introduction then: a strategic withdrawal of labour that opens the door onto the collection but offers little in the way of guidance to readers once they step through. Whether that is generous or irresponsible we leave to readers to decide.

The author’s artistic experiment The Hearing Test focuses on detection
of high frequency clicking sounds that are emitted by the tips of plants’
roots. Scientists have claimed that plants’ roots produce high frequency
clicks between 20 and 300 kHz by bursting air bubbles. But while the
phenomenon has been described, its cause remains unexplained. This
lack of knowledge opens up possibilities for multiple interpretations and
invites experimental approaches as well as speculation concerning plant
intelligence, the role of species-specific hearing and sound as evidence.
The article is an extended reflection on the experiment.

Como sabemos, hay muchas vertientes desde las que podríamos aproximarnos al ámbito de la creación sonora en el territorio urbano. Estas varían en función del objetivo que se persigue, de la estructura que adoptan para alcanzarlo como también de las estrategias y métodos que ponen en juego. Es imposible y probablemente poco realista trazar divisiones exactas entre tales vertientes o crear compartimentos estancos para cada una de ellas. Hay, no obstante, ciertos rasgos que las diferencian y que las empujan hacia determinados ámbitos. Por un lado podríamos señalar prácticas que trabajan el diseño sonoro de espacios urbanos y arquitectónicos, tratando de crear una relación fluida entre el conjunto de construcciones estáticas y los perfiles dinámicos de las personas que los habitan, usan o transitan. Por otro lado hay en curso un amplio número de investigaciones y trayectorias artísticas que toman como punto de partida la fonografía para desarrollar aproximaciones al entorno urbano social trabajando la identidad de los espacios, la memoria aural de los mismos o la crítica relacionada con los sistemas de poder. Asimismo podríamos señalar instalaciones sonoras que surgen en el espacio público con la intención de mejorarlo o de crear una situación acústica más agradable y por tanto quizá más estética, como también con la intención de dinamizarlo y crear una situación casi lúdica en relación con los usuarios con los que interacciona. En todas estas vertientes se aprecia un interés común por tratar el sonido de una forma artísticamente depurada y cuidada, siendo de este modo el sonido el medio y el fin mismo de la obra en la mayoría de los casos. Todas ellas trabajan además el reconocimiento de la escucha en el entorno público como una posibilidad para trascender los límites físicos y situarnos como audiencia en un espacio más flexible de interpretación del contexto urbano.

Sounding Madness: The Ethics of Listening in Janet Frame's Faces in the Water is a transdisciplinary sonic exploration of the historical, cultural, and theoretical concerns surrounding electroshock's (AKA electroconvulsive therapy or ECT) impact on memory, its controversial accusations of erasure and its current revival as a "miracle" (Peck 2) treatment for complex trauma (PTSD). My project employs "sound as a verb" (Voegelin 17) for voicing claims of "memory erasure" (Andre 6) by women ECT survivors that have been named "groundless" (Fink 17) by psychiatrists. To do so, I propose a sonic interpretation of Janet Frame's 1961 novel Faces in the Water, a fictional account of her twelve-year stay in New Zealand mental institutions and 200 electroshock treatments in the late 1940s-1950s because it depicts a rich sonic landscape of shock (treatment as trauma) and "madness as a new kind of music" (77). Since Frame prioritizes sound as a literary device, I weave her voice within a larger historical sonic context, dating back to Victorian medical electricity, the soundscape of the asylum and the sounds of contemporary Mad activism. Utilizing sound art as a Research-Creation method that employs and embodies diverse theories of listening (from psychoanalytic to phenomenological), I aim to create a sonic space for "listening otherwise" (Levinas, Lispari, Voegelin, Todd) towards Mad dialogical and epistemological justice.

Installer l'écoute Composer des paysages Cadre Paysages, environnements, milieux et territoires sonores, esthétiques et sociabilités Expériences-écrire/écrire/parcourir Le soundwalking, marcher, écouter Rapports kinesthésiques à l'espace sonore, jouer des postures d'écoute in situ et out situ Flux, ambiances et points d'ouïe remarquables, marqueurs auriculaires et signatures sonores Matières et matériaux de (re)composition Compositions Installations pérennes, mobiles, éphémères Écritures et traces radiophoniques Création sonore, performances et supports Écosophie sonore Murray Schafer, Max Neuhaus, audionaturalisme, éco-acoustique et bioacoustique. Arts environnementaux ? Expériences et échanges PAS-Parcours Audio Sensible, marche d'écoute, ressentis et commentaires Écoutes d'exemples sonores et vidéos commentés Des expériences désartsonnantes en exemples

Ensayo libre sobre el sonido y la catástrofe, realizado en el marco de la asignatura sobre arte sonoro coordinada por José Luis Sarmiento y Javier Ariza en el programa de doctorado Nuevas prácticas artìsticas y culturales en la esfera pública.

ÍNDICE
0# Introito
1# Muros y trompetas.
2# Siempre suena una canción alegre.
3# Música tras el terror Música sobre el terror. Música en el terror: El terror musical.
4# El grito plegado.
5# Silenciadores.

Does a city project a certain inner character within the subjective auditory perception of the listener’s experience of its complex sound environment? This paper examines the artistic processes involved in the author’s recent composition elegy for Bangalore, which sheds light on the methodologies of listening to and field recording in an emerging and transfiguring Indian city toward composing its urban character.

An audio paper on H e (a) r; a soundscape connected to ecology, acoustics and embodiment, drawing on encounters and what happens in the connection. A fluctuation between hear-here-her*-her. Originating in a work for the ensemble Nordic Affect’s concert at Nordic Music Days 2016, the piece has now been developed into both a quadrophonic and stereo version of H e (a) r (2017/18). The work has been released on Nordic Affect’s album on the Sono Luminus label.This audio paper unpacks the work’s compositional process as well as curatorial strategies, which link to my PhD research project’s ecological-enactive trajectory, including its socio-political backdrop.The audio paper references H e (a) r in its album version. It also includes Nordic Affect’s performance of Mirjam Tally’s Warm life at the foot of the iceberg. Other sonic material lists as follows: documentation material from H e (a) r’s workshops – field recording by Magnus Bergsson of a crawling glacier - field recording by Halla ...

Taking the term soundscape as a starting point, this essay by José Manuel Berenguer addresses a number of concerns relevant to understanding the listening experience within art and everyday life. Tackling questions such as phenomenology, cognition, new media, aesthetics and the overlap between art and science, Berenguer engages in a critical analysis of recent sound art practices, using both significant historical examples and his own experience.

Becoming commercially available in the mid 1960s, video quickly became integral to the intense experimentalism of New York City's music and art scenes. The medium was able to record image and sound at the same time, which allowed composers to visualize their music and artists to sound their images. But as well as creating unprecedented forms of audiovisuality, video work also producedinteractive spaces that questioned conventional habits of music and art consumption. This book explores the first decade of creative video work, focusing on the ways in which video technology was used to dissolve the boundaries between art and music.

Tracciare le possibili traiettorie di autorappresentazione attivate dall'ascolto per indagare i confini identitari, scoprire le storie che il territorio conserva e svela attraverso le pratiche quotidiane, attraverso le tracce sonore che segnano gli usi dello spazio. È così che la registrazione ambientale (field recording) lavora sul contesto: raccoglie frammenti privati e li ricompone in una storia collettiva, in una narrazione che è scritta dal pubblico e ne preannuncia lo sviluppo endogeno, stimolandone l'autogoverno. Seguendo questo filo l'invito costante è rivolto a interrogare in chiave identitaria la definizione di «patrimonio culturale intangibile». Sarà necessario allora forzare le possibilità offerte dalla passeggiata sonora (soundwalk) come pratica di deriva, per un rinnovato inquadramento estetico e progettuale. Tale attitudine richiama a quegli strumenti partecipativi che si pongono l'obiettivo di raggiungere una prospettiva comune, capace di accogliere le differenze, ammettere la coabitazione tra identità, rileggere le pratiche quotidiane e gli usi in termini di presidio e di cura. Ci troviamo a cavallo tra marginale e liminale, ovvero tra incapacità di autorappresentazione e nuove istanze di resistenza, di sovversione dell'ordine costituito; o ancora tra attori «muti» e nuovi promotori di «gentrificazione». Ed è proprio su questo confine che il paesaggio sonoro si presenta come l'arena dei confronti e dei conflitti identitari, come la metafora viva di uno scontro continuo tra poteri e sistemi di valori. Se esiste infatti un parallelo tra coscienza di luogo e consapevolezza acustica, indagare le modalità per far maturare consapevolezza all'ascolto ci porta a una riflessione più ampia sul «diritto alla città» e sulla costruzione di «beni comuni». Ci spinge a riconsiderare quei beni immateriali capaci di penetrare e condizionare la nostra percezione e le nostre pratiche quotidiane. L'ascolto si rivela pratica essenzialmente relazionale, laddove il lavoro con e attraverso l'ambiente sonoro diventa occasione per scardinare quelle rappresentazioni su cui si fonda l'incapacità di trasformazione. Vogliamo esplorare una prospettiva tanto distante quanto estranea attraverso cui leggere, coinvolgere e lasciarci coinvolgere dalle comunità locali, per interpretare e orientare insieme un ascolto attivante e attivatore del tessuto sociale. Costruire un archivio sonoro dove ogni abitante potrà riconoscersi e raccontarsi, sentendosi parte di una collettività. L'ascolto e la registrazione diventano strumenti di trasformazione dall'interno, luoghi di discussione dove scrivere collettivamente uno statuto provvisorio (e inter-soggettivamente riconosciuto) dell'ambiente sonoro, che sappia guidare consapevolmente le trasformazioni della città e del territorio.

Mikrofony zbierają więcej, niż chcielibyśmy przyznać. W nagraniach odbijają się nasze pragnienia i sprzeczności. Refleksja o field recordings – o słuchaniu „na faktach” – nie mogła trafić na dogodniejszy moment. Wygląda na to, że świat właśnie kończy się upłynniać, a może już spod nas wyparowuje. Postprawdę ogłoszono słowem roku. Wierzyć chce się tylko „AszDziennikowi”. Gdy załamaniu ulega wiara w mierzalny, „obiektywny” świat, a opisy rzeczywistości zostają zastąpione relacjami z prób jej wytwarzania, nagrywanie terenowe zyskuje na wadze jako jedna z praktyk, które decydują o kształcie ponowoczesności i zarazem go odzwierciedlają. Książka Filipa Szałaska – zbiór esejów i rozmów o field recordings – ujmuje dźwięk w siatkę interdyscyplinarnych odniesień (od filmów Ghibli i Herzoga przez sny po internetową pornografię), dowodząc, że opisuje on świat równie sugestywnie, co książki, obrazy, awatary. Najważniejsze trendy nowej humanistyki – postkolonializm, animal i thing studies, widmontologie – nie mogą dłużej obywać się bez niego. 

Niniejszy plik zawiera tylko fragment książki.

"Abstract: Who has the right to make the most noise in the world? The churches’ bells in the old times, the loudspeakers in Hitler’s era, planes taking off in the airports, police sirens, rock bands? In a world where background music (muzak) invades all public places, Canadian musicologist and composer Murray Schafer does an analysis of all types of sounds (natural, artificial, from the old days until today) in his book The Tuning of the World and advances a proposal to create sound museums. Wouldn’t it be extraordinary to be able to listen to the sounds surrounding St Sophia’s Church during Byzantine times or ... the forest noises from when dinosaurs roamed the Earth?

Keywords: Murray Schafer, muzak, musical schizophrenia, musical landscape, ambient music, noise, musical museum"

A summer colony organised under the title International
Artists’ Meetings and International Visual Artists’
Meetings in Vela Luka in 1968, 1970 and 1972, regularly questioned
different means of creative expression. The first edition
of the event took place in 1968 and it explored the topic
of the mosaic in the urban space; the 1970 edition focused
on the synthesis of urbanism, architecture and fine art, and
in 1972 it dealt with multidisciplinarity, amateurism and the
participation of the local population, as well as the artistic
use of mass media. The development of the Meetings
reveals the organization of creative work in different
schemes of relations ranging from the personal to the collective
and team work of creative individuals connected with the local management and economy and, thereby, articulating
several modalities of participation of the local population
in creative art processes.

During the heat of 1969s fraught political climate, editors of the legendary multi-media magazine “SOURCE: Music of the Avant Garde” invited 20 innovative composers and musicians to respond to a single question: “Have you, or has anyone, ever used your work for political or social ends?” Forty-five years later and in the midst of the latest variety of intense current events, sound/conceptual artist Alyce Santoro posed the same question to 20 unconventional composers working today, two of whom answered the question 45 years ago, and six more of whom had works published in SOURCE on other occasions.

To view both the complete original 1969 SOURCE article along with the 2015 responses for LMJ, please visit http://www.alycesantoro.com/politics_of_sound_art.html.

The article argues that if a sound artist while exploring a city as a site for artistic research does not remain a listener but instead registers his or her presence in the phenomenological development of the artwork by intervening and participating in the urban sound environment, the outcome can transcend mere impression of the urban space and become a critical reflection of the dynamic relationship between the artist and the city.