We started by suggesting themes and feelings we would like our piece to express. The most prevalent themes were uncertainty, society, inauthenticity and social media. Raul suggested using Guy Debord’s book ‘The Society of the Spectacle’, this fit perfectly with out themes so we moved forward with this as our subject. ‘The Society of the Spectacle’ was written in 1967 as a criticism of the encroaching rise of consumerism in Paris. Guy Debord believed that due to capitalist production resulting in an abundance of things, the human need for survival had been met, and subsequently replaced by a need for goods. Humans have developed a ‘need for more’, even when our needs are met. Debord believed this need for more came from appearances, he believed that ‘All having must now derive its immediate prestige and its ultimate purpose from appearances.’ Image and appearances have now become important to individuals above all else, and we are sold products with the promise that it will improve how we are perceived by other people.
My experience of the second lockdown has been primarily uncomfortable, to be specific my exposure to things that make me feel comfortable (being with loved ones) has been restricted and replaced by an artificial version ie. Text messages, phone calls, video calls. An important aspect of this experience is that the effect it has had on my mind, however impactful, has been very subtle. Although these circumstances have impacted me greatly, I didn’t notice the impact until very late into the experience. Personally, I have never experienced something like this, it’s a strange feeling. It reminds me of the boiling frog effect, where a frog will not notice a gradual increase in the temperature of the water it is immersed in, even if it is being boiled alive. A subtle transition from comfort and mental well being, to an uncomfortable, cold and artificial experience. This is the experience or feeling I will try to invoke using sound.
To do this I have to first determine what makes a sound comfortable, and what makes it uncomfortable.
Warm and cold sound- To me warm sound can be characterised by low and mid frequencies, they have a full sound perhaps because they resonate with your body. Cold sounds are characterised by higher frequencies, thin sounds that cut through a soundscape. This is not to say that higher frequencies can’t be used to invoke a comfortable feeling, this is just how I see it generally.
Harmony- I feel comfort is greatly effected by harmony. Harmony is an incredibly deep area of research and information, but for my project I think I only need to talk about a small part of it. Emotion and tension can be expressed through use of cadence, our brains like patterns, and within a musical phrase there is more often than not a resolution, this is where the chords return ‘home’ to the root note. I think the most comfortable cadence would be a perfect authentic cadence, going from the fifth to the first chord, where both chords are in root position and the ‘first’ chord ending the phrase would have the tonic note as the highest note. I will try to explore this concept to invoke comfort, but also tension by straying from this cadence.
Resolution- I think a good way to invoke discomfort is using Bit depth. People like what is real and tend to dislike poor representations, an example being the uncanny valley. I feel reducing the resolution of a sound will result in an uneasy feeling, I got this idea from Cristobal Tapia De Veer’s work on Utopia. Also this will re-enforce the presence of technology in this piece, this could remind people of connection failures in phone calls.
Stereo Field- I believe that I could use the stereo field as a representation of exposure. Mixing using the full stereo field will make the audience feel surrounded and immersed, while restricting the sounds to one area will result in the audience feeling separated from these sounds. To try and recreate my experience, I would like to play with the idea of restricting the sounds in such a way where it would sound as if it were coming only from a phone.
Sounds, instruments and techniques-
Synthesisers- I think important aspects would be low cut off, smooth waveforms and using portamento for a warm comfortable feeling.
Human voices, this is an incredibly familiar sound for people, and I believe a very comfortable one due to us being social creatures. I have some recordings of people talking about what makes them comfortable I can use.
Ebow- I have an electronic violin bow that I have been experimenting with for a few years, when places near a guitar string it creates a very smooth rich note, and when these are layered with harmony the result is like the auditory equivalent of being submerged in warm water.
Human voice- I believe the human voice is a very comforting and familiar sound. I think I can use this as a malleable tool, first used to induce comfort, then distorted to express a feeling of uneasiness. This hopefully will reflect the feeling of comfort being fragmented.
Field recordings- I recorded a couple of really useful sounds from our sound walk on the Thames. The first is a recording of me agitating a lovelock attached to a railing, I used a contact microphone to emphasise tactility in the sound. I was particularly pleased with the quality of frustration the recording had, it sounded as though something was restricted, unable to move more than a couple of inches. The second recording also used a contact microphone, I attached it to a suspension wire on a bridge, I then rubbed a key along the ridged wire. This had a very abrasive sound, and a feeling of rising tension as the key got closer to the microphone.
Reflecting on the work:
In conclusion, I’m pleased with the outcome of the piece overall. I think it sucessfully expresses a transition from comfort to a distorted, inadequate simulation of reality. Unfortunately December proved to be a very challenging time for me, and I became very unproductive as a result. I wish I took more time to make the piece longer, I feel it would’ve been beneficial to linger in the comfortable section for longer to make the transition more impactful. I also wish I had used ambient room sound, I think it would’ve been useful to create a specific soundscape to give a sense of space, so that I could then manipulate this space into something else.
This BBC radio segment was inspired by an Indian folktale about perspective. The story consists of 6 old men who were all born blind, they are very curious about the world and get their information from passing travellers. They have a specific curiosity with elephants, they are told wondrous stories about how they could trample forests, carry huge burdens and frighten people with their trumpet calls. Contrast to this image, they also knew that the Raj’s daughter rode an elephant when she travelled across her fathers land. They argue day and night about whether an elephant is a giant dangerous creature capable of killing men, or a graceful gentle giant. The men arrange to go touch the elephant in the Raj’s palace. When they get there, they all touch different parts of the elephant and declare the animal to be different things. One touching the trunk declares it to be a giant snake like creature, another touches the side of the elephant and declares it to be smooth and solid like a wall. They have a noisy argument which awakens the Raj from a nap, he asks “how can each of you be so certain you are right?” He then says “The elephant is a very large animal, each man touched only one part. Perhaps if you put the parts together, you will see the truth.”
The BBC recreated this story. A group of blind people describe what they believe an elephant to be, their descriptions are based on very little evidence. They then are given the opportunity to touch an elephant, they can then talk about their misconceptions.
I think this piece is really interesting as it highlights elements of the blind experience sighted people would not normally know about, it is also a very effective lesson in perspective. Listening to the blind people feeling each part of the elephant expresses the fragmented nature of their experience, having to perceive the animal in small parts, and attempt to stitch it together in their mind for a complete ‘picture’. To equate the piece to radio itself, the blind people are listeners of radio, and sighted people are viewers of visual media ie. Films. There is a certain creative licence afforded to listeners, without the definitive visual to cement the subject in context, the mind can create its own visual accompaniment and the subject is not so rigidly defined.
Kate Hopkins is an accomplished sound editor based in Bristol who has worked in all genres of TV and film. Due to Bristol being the home of the BBC’s natural history unit, she has specialised in sound for natural history films. Hopkins has been awarded 2 Emmys for outstanding editing for non-fiction programming, this was for work on Plant Earth ‘Pole to Pole’ (2007) and Frozen Planet ‘Ends Of the Earth’ (2012), she has also been awarded three BAFTAs. Kate has a long list of projects she has worked on, some of which are Disney’s ‘Monkey Kingdom’ (2015), National Geographic’s ‘Great Migrations’ (2010), Apple’s ‘The Elephant Queen’ (2018). More recently she has worked on David Attenborough’s ‘A life on our planet’ (2020) and Apple’s ‘Earth at night in colour’ (2020).
Kate began her career as a receptionist for a small post production company in Bristol. Her boss Nigel, she says, was a picture editor, and while fulfilling her receptionist duties (making phone calls, answering emails and ‘making endless cups of tea’) she would also assist her boss in the cutting room organising trims from 16 and 35mm film. Hopkin’s believes that the small nature of the company allowed her to experience many different fields, working alongside Aardman animation studios, and syncing up picture and sound for dramas and natural history films. After 3 and a half years working in this company, Kate received her union card allowing her to transition to freelance work.
At this time, there were a lot of 35mm drama’s being made in Bristol for large American companies such as Universal. Kate moved from Nigel’s practice to Universal and started working on these dramas as a freelance assistant editor, eventually moving into the role of assistant sound editor. Hopkins credits this moment as the birth of her passion for sound design, in her own words she ‘realised what impact a sound edit could have, if you put different atmospheres, if you put different effects in, they move on a story and add drama.’ Kate names some of her influences as the Cohen brother’s films, The godfather, Apocalypse now and Raging Bull. She says ‘these are all films which had very distinctive sound tracks’. ‘Raging Bull’, she adds, ‘was particularly good because all of the punches used a combination of real punches, but also had Lion roars and stuff put in. So it sort of illustrated how much you could do with sound design with it still feeling real. It was just adding power and drama.’
Kate began to learn about signature sounds used in dramas, for example if you wanted to portray poverty you would use distant dog barks and the sound of a baby crying, sudden silence being an excellent way to create drama. Eventually Kate would have to transition from film to digital as a freelancer, which meant no training, she remembers the process as very much ‘learning on the job’. At this time some of Kate’s colleagues from the past were setting up a production company named ‘Wounded Buffalo’, she began collaborating with these colleagues on natural history films such as ‘Natural world’. Continuing with the theme of learning on the job, Kate recalls accepting a job in Idaho (US) which was a 90 minute documentary about wool, the studio had protools which at the time, she had never been exposed to. Hopkins read the manual on the plane journey over, and thankfully produced the 90 minute soundtrack.
Hopkins began work on ‘Blue Planet’, she says this was a fantastic job as the show being underwater allowed for many creative opportunities in the sound design. Hopkins recalls enjoying designing sound to emphasise movement of organisms, and also the feeling of depth by changing ambience. She believed this work pushed sound editing further forward in the production process, sound became more important and her work became more of a collaboration between sound design and music. From ‘Blue Planet’, Kate went on to work on ‘Frozen planet’, ‘Blue planet two’, ‘Life’, and ‘the dynasty series’. She was then asked to work on Disney’s ‘Nature’ series, mixing feature films for large theatres with her colleague Tim Owens. During this time Dolby atmos started arise, which Kate believes helps sound designers achieve their goal of placing the audience in the environment on screen. One thing Kate stresses the importance of in her work is using accurate sound, she says you can layer up as many sounds as you want but It will result in a muddy mix if the right sounds aren’t used.
Hopkins describes working on horror films to be ‘an absolute joy’, due to the creative freedom. Using whatever sounds you like as long as it results in a scary sound. This contrasts heavily with the practices of natural history sound, where she is required to meticulously find specific animal calls and sounds. Kate fondly recalls working on a low budget horror films called ‘Hardware’ (1990), but states something that I think might stick with me ‘there’s nothing like a low budget film to put pressure on a sound editor.’ This really highlights the impact and importance of sound design, in the absence of high budget visuals its up to the sound to immerse the viewer.
Scene from Hardware 1990
Hopkins describes how she starts the process of working on a film or tv program, specifically in natural history. She stresses the importance of recording wild sound onsite, and says this can often get overlooked as directors can often be focused purely on visuals. Kate remarks on a moment in her career where a project was allocated a small budget for sound editors to go out on location, which she describes as a rarity. She talks about being driven around the Maasai Mara in a jeep, recording Lions very close up and wildebeest hooves among other things.
Kate describes the collaboration process between sound editors and composers, finding the balance between effects and music. This involves agreeing which scenes are going to be music drive and which are effects driven to avoid overlap and unnecessary work. They also have to work around each other to not overcrowd a mix, for example if there are a lot of bass heavy effects the composers have to avoid bass in the music.
It was at this point in the lecture where Kate showed a Protools session for a clip about meerkats from the Dynasty series. Watching this I was struck by the amount of audio files and the organisation of them. I find the idea of sculpting a believable soundscape very interesting, specifically the subtlety of the mix, doing just enough to immerse the viewer but little enough so as not to distract from the scene.
Tibetan singing bowls are metal bowls used by Tibetan monks in spiritual ceremonies, they are usually made from a combination of alloy metals. The bowls produce sound when someone strikes it, or when a mallet is rubbed in a circular motion around the outside rim, this produces a consistent sustained tone.
There is evidence to suggest that these metal ‘standing’ bells originated from the Shang Dynasty in China (16th-11th Centuries BCE), they are believed to have developed from grain measures. Singing Bowls are used in prayer chants in Buddhist and Taoist practices. The bowls are also used as a meditational tool, as they produce sustained consistent tones that are pleasing to hear. The singing bowl can be found in temples all over Asia, and is used for spiritual and ceremonial purposes. The bowls have been adopted in the West as a sound therapy tool, and have been shrouded in mystery and legend. Stories of secret alloys, monks chanting as they are being made and hammer marks representing mantras recited are all fictitious and probably originated to sell them to uninformed buyers. They are made with bronze by metal smiths.
I am not interested in the Western mystical side of Tibetan singing bowls, relating them to Chakras and energy fields. I am interested in the fact that for thousands of years humans have been attracted to sustained consistent tones, and that these are predominantly found in places of worship or meditation. I think the question I am interested in is, Why do long consistent tones relax humans? And there is evidence to suggest that this is the case. An observational study on the effect of singing bowl mediation on moods published in 2016 found that 60 minutes of sound meditation using Tibetan singing bowls reduced depression, anxiety and tension in people of ages ranging from 21-77. Strangely they found that previous experience with singing bowls effected the results of the study. Specifically they found a significant change in the mean tension sub-scale from baseline to post meditation for participants between the ages of 40-59 who had no previous experience with singing bowl meditation.
Although there is no clear explanation as to why this happens, there is a theory that includes the potential effects of binaural beats. Binaural beats are when the right ear and left ear receive slightly different frequencies, the brain processes this information to perceive it as one single note, it is believed by advocates of this therapy that this process can cause relaxation, reduce stress and anxiety, and induce deeper sleep. However, research into the effectiveness of binaural beat therapy is inconclusive and it is not recognised as a part of standard care for any condition.
Vibroacoustic Therapy Chair
During research on singing bowls I came across vibroacoustic therapy. This is a practice created by a Norwegian man named Olay Skille in 1968. Vibroacoustic therapy is the practice of applying vibrations directly to the body in the form of low frequency (between 30Hz and 120Hz) sinus tones in combination with selected music.’ The impulses emitted by the vibroacoustic equipment are perceived not only through acoustical receptors in the body, but through vibrotactile receptors.
Some observed positive effects on patients symptoms are as follows:
Autism- Contact-defying autistic children would become so engaged with the sensation of vibration, that they would permit people to give them more physical contact than in other situations.
Rett Syndrome- Some symptoms of Rett syndrome are unusual repetitive jerking movements of the muscles, irritability, stress and difficulty sleeping. Skille found that during vibroacoustic therapy, people with this condition would be able to sleep, and he noted a muscle relaxing effect.
Cerebral Palsy- A significant reduction in spasms.
Insomnia- Sufferers of insomnia often fall asleep during vibroacoustic therapy, also the duration of sleep would be longer than normally experienced.
Circulatory deficiencies- People with this condition have found effective relief through vibroacoutsisc therapy as the vibrations encourage circulation in the body.
I have only provided 5 examples but the list is 24 items long. I think the medical use of sound is very interesting, and I would like to explore the idea of inducing relaxation through sound, and how this could be used as a compositional tool. I think I will keep Olay Skille’s three ‘universals’ of therapeutic use of vibrational sounds in mind when making a piece of sound art.
2). Rhythmically strong music increases energy; rhythmically neutral music decreases energy.
3). Loud music (low dB values-high amplitude) activates; soft music (high dB values-low amplitude) pacifies.
Bibliography:
Goldsby, T., Goldsby, M., McWalters, M. and Mills, P., 2016. Effects of Singing Bowl Sound Meditation on Mood, Tension, and Well-being: An Observational Study. Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine, 22(3), pp.401-406 [Accessed 17 January 2021]
Soundtravels.co.uk. 2021. Singing Bowls – Separating Truth From Myth. [online] Available at: < https://www.soundtravels.co.uk/a-Singing_Bowls__Separating_Truth_from_Myth-732.aspx > [Accessed 17 January 2021].
Medicalnewstoday.com. 2021. Binaural Beats Therapy: Benefits And How They Work. [online] Available at: <https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320019> [Accessed 17 January 2021].
Joel Stern is an Australian researcher, curator and artist. His interest in sound came to him when he was a teenager listening to community based local radio stations, especially graveyard shifts, listening to long form minimal, avant-guard experimental music. He joined a media and technology course in Melbourne, where he collaborated with students, articulating ideas across the boundaries of different mediums. He felt at that time, something new was happening in the world of art, focusing on new technologies and techniques. He studied sound arts at London college of printing and began to see sound as an important genre of art. Stern feels this time was extremely formative for him, partly due to the improvised and experimental music scenes in London.
Stern took on the artistic direction of liquid architecture in 2013. It’s the key sonic arts organisation in Australia, it formed in the late 90s out of the interdisciplinary practice in the royal Melbourne institute of technology. At the time it was a national touring festival of sonic art. It had a Eurocentric, modernist experimental approach to sonic art with concert and exhibition as the key formats.
When he took on the role he dissolved the festival format, he wanted to work on projects at any scale at any time, he wanted to be more ‘formally experimental’. By 2014/15, under his direction liquid architecture had become a year round venture consisting of all kinds of formats.
What would a Feminist methodology sound like? This is how Joel describes his curatorial methodology for sound, he puts emphasis on the politics and ethics of listening. Stern sees curating and curatorial research as a from of knowledge production, trying to map out a particular terrain. Joel’s aim was to cultivate a feminist culture within the organisation, to create a radically inclusive environment and set a template for liquid architecture for years to come. Stern thinks not in terms of singular events or projects but in terms of investigation into methodologies for sound production in a political space.
Eavesdropping and machine listening was a research project for Joels PHD. It was fundamentally a collaboration with James Parker who had been thinking about sound through the prism of a critical legal perspective. For example, the ways in which law tries to regulate and control sound, and the way that societies and structures operate with it such as the weaponisation of sound. The word eavesdropping is relevant because of its history, it describes a crime or public wrong. Stern and Parker wanted to think about what the history of eavesdropping can tell us about the practice today. They hoped that researching the history of eavesdropping would illuminate how todays social political landscape is affected by it.
EAVESDROPPING
The Manus recording project is about a detention centre on Manus Island off the coast of Papua New Guinea that is controlled by the Australian government. This work was a collaboration between Michael Green, Andre Dao and Jon Tjhia. Michael was contacted by a prisoner detained in this centre through a phone he had smuggled in. Due to the intermittent internet connection, the prisoner would prerecord messages, these messages became the content of a podcast called the messenger. It’s a sonic representation of the prison population. Joel approached these artists and asked if they would create a piece for the eavesdropping project, this piece came to be called ‘How are you today?’ They smuggled 6 audio recorders into the detention centre with phones loaded with credit. This was to give the prisoners a means to record a ten minute recording and send it to Joel and his colleagues, they did this daily. They then created an exhibition where these recordings would be played. There is also an online bank of these recordings, they total 14 hours of speech. Some of the recordings ask us to listen to the men, and some ask us to listen with the men to their surrounding sounds. I find it interesting that they didn’t try to create a narrative, its more a documentary take, an unfiltered window into the experience of people who normally would not have a voice, not be listened to or with. The piece is a vessel for the audience to eavesdrop on something we are not meant to hear.
The main pieces of advice I took from Joel Stern’s lecture is think about how you can make audible, what was previously inaudible. When you make a piece about something, consider why you use sound, does it reveal something extra or communicate an account or idea in a way that couldn’t be done through another medium?
Darsha Hewitt is a Canadian sound artist that works primarily with technology, making artwork through experiments, pushing electronics to new uses.
Hewitt takes inspiration from Dr Ursula Franklin, who suggested that technology should be seen as a comprehensive human led practice, similar to culture or democracy. Hewitt believes that Technology is connected through history to structures, networks of people and nature. We need to not only value the end product of technology, but the preceding steps and advancements that led to that point. This ‘end product’ view of technology, Hewitt says, leaves us unfamiliar with the material aspects of the infrastructure that upholds it.
Hewitt places a lot of value on working with obsolete technology, this is partly influenced by the concept of post-growth. We live on a planet of finite resources, therefore populations and economies cannot grow infinitely. Post-growth is a term that acknowledges the eventuality that there will one day be a tipping point where economic growth will no longer be beneficial to humanity, after this point we will have to look for other indicators and techniques to increase human wellbeing. Hewitt is looking into ways to use technology that responds to this idea of post growth. Darsha thinks of obsolete technology as a naturally occurring resource, appearing in rubbish bins and sidewalks. This resource is a tool, to be experimented with, material to manipulate and reformat into art.
An example of using obsolete technology for sound arts:
DISCO LED HACK- DARSHA HEWITT
Electrostatic Bell Choir-
In 2013 Canada switched from analogue to digital cable. Due to a failure to inform the public that the switch could be achieved with a converter (there was no need to buy a new TV), a lot of people bought new televisions, thus there was an abundance of televisions on the streets. Hewitt used this new resource to create an art piece. Curious to see if she could use the static from the screen to move something, Hewitt started experimenting. She found that she could hang electrostatic bells from telephones in front of the screens, and they would respond to the screen’s electrostatic discharge, causing them to ring.
ELECTROSTATIC BELL CHOIR- DARSHA HEWITT
After creating this piece, Hewitt found that in the 1700’s electrostatic bells had already been used in a similar way to demonstrate the potential of static electricity. Hewitt believes this is a first hand example of how ‘electronics are not only matter, unfolding through minerals, chemicals, bodies, soil, water, environments and temporalities. They also provide traces of the economic, cultural and political contexts in which they circulate.’ This practice of taking apart old technologies to understand and reformat the parts is called media archaeology.
Hi fidelity wasteland 1: 100 year old quicksilver cloud-
Central to this piece is a 100 year old piece of technology called a Thyratron typically used in industrial AC switching mechanisms. This thyratron contained a vacuum tube radiating a cloud of ionised mercury. This piece of technology interested Darsha as it was built before the concept of planned obsolescence, it was a functioning piece of technology’s history, and due to the transparent construction the infrastructure is visible. Darsha recorded the high pitched tones the thyratron emanated, and with help from a musician composed an audio/visual piece that gives an experiential glimpse into history.
HIGH FIDELITY WASTELAND 1- DARSHA HEWITT
Darsha Hewitt became interested in the idea of spontaneous DIY sound performance, and created a poster detailing how to create a sound performance with two telephones called the ‘loop hole generator’. I like this as it makes sound performance completely accessible to anyone as most people have phones, I also like that it has a collaborative/communal aspect to it. The piece creates one time, unique and dissonant sound pieces where small patterns would sometimes emerge, the user could also input sound into the phones and listen to how the sound travels and changes through the feedback loop. Darsha noticed that the feedback sounded like a whimpering baby, this gave her the idea to mechanise this movement and create another slightly different sound piece. She attached strings and motors to lots of old baby monitors, she described them as looking quite small pathetic and noticed a sort of anthropomorphisation happening. Darsha creates a mechanical system and lets it create its own patterns and sequences, and leaves it up to the listener to discern musicality from it. I’m interested in this idea not composing a piece of sound art, but composing the framework and context for a piece to grow and thrive within. This is very similar to Jessica Ekomane’s use of Max MSP to create parameters for a piece.
FEEDBACK BABIES- DARSHA HEWITT
Researching Darsha Hewitt’s work and philosophy has given me an appreciation for the political-economic aspects of materials used in art, the value of obsolete technology as something to explore and reformat, and lastly the practice of creating the parameters for a performance or sound piece and letting it unfold organically.
Jessica Ekomane creates situations where sounds acts as a transformative element for space and audience through the interplay of psychoacoustics, perception of rhythm structures and the interchange of noise and melody. She explores the relationship between individual perception and collective dynamics, and investigates listening expectations and their societal roots.
Jessica believes that there is a ritualistic aspect to listening to or making music, and that there’s an opportunity for community within it. Jessica has an interest in rhythm because of its bodily quality, its universally felt, its democratic. She believes that audio can be a way to transmit a complex idea through bodily knowledge, audio is a way of sharing and understanding knowledge.
Multivocal is an album consisting of two compositions. For the first composition, Solid of Revolution, Jessica created 13 different metronomes in Max MSP, they are all pulsating at 1 millisecond difference, each with a different note. This means that they start in uniform as one, but slowly, they start to faze into something different, the landscape is constantly changing. Ekomane states, ‘The piece is in a way always the same and always different’, this causes the audience’s perception of the piece to be less about waiting for the next event, and more about the process. Its about holding and releasing consciousness, if someone were to fall asleep or leave the room and come back, the piece would be the same but totally different. You don’t perceive the changes in the piece while you’re consciously listening to it, but if you leave the room for five minutes and come back then it will be completely different. Solid of revolution is played in quadraphonic and each note is played from one speaker. This makes the audience’s perception more spatial, it creates a melody in space. Its provoking trends through repetition that play with your bodily experience in the moment.
Jessica Is interested in the classic division of mind and body, she investigates this through trying to evoke thinking and feeling in her audience at the same time.
I think holding and releasing consciousness is what you do when you create any sound piece, but this piece isolates and elucidates this aspect of sound arts for the audience. This piece has influenced me to be mindful of how I hold and release consciousness in my work. Hopefully through understanding this piece I can play with the idea of structuring works in layers, some that demand the audiences immediate conscious perception, and some that can drift in and out of the audience’s conscious perception. I think framing sound art in this way will help me understand my effect on my audience and how I communicate my ideas.
Comedown is a piece exhibited in the Berghain. Jessica took elements of club music that are usually used to induce euphoria and collective intensity, and reformatted this musical language to create the opposite effect, a piece that builds but never drops, a piece that wants to start but never quite builds the momentum. This, for Jessica, is reminiscent of the social landscape of 2020. This ironic take on club music is driven through use of samples that re-enforce themes of money making, predators, war and hustling. This almost sarcastic use of samples ‘reflects some aspects of the social and economic system we are in’. It is about a system that is breaking down.
Citizen Band is a piece by Jessica made using a CB radio, a short distance communication radio, now mainly used by truck drivers. CB radio is completely public, anyone can tune in, and the conversations found can be very personal. Jessica tuned into American truckers having conversations and recorded them. She thought it would be interesting to dislocate this CB frequency to FM, national radio, where these conversations don’t really belong. Jessica values ‘placing one context into another’, and believes that ‘this can reveal certain hidden structures’.
I like the idea of finding beauty/interest in a private or unassuming place. It reminds me of the candid humanist photography of Henri Cartier Bresson. The element of his work that I love is the unbiased, uninterrupted glimpses into human life. I feel as though Jessica Ekomane has achieved the same effect through audio.
Sound is a longitudinal wave through particles in an environment (Longitudinal meaning the direction of the waves’ oscillation is the same as the direction of travel). Sound waves are produced when the vibration of an object sets the particles of a medium in motion. Sound waves cause air to compress and expand, resulting in areas of high and low pressure. The movement of particles determines the frequency and amplitude of a sound. Frequency is determined by the rate of movement of particles. Amplitude is determined by the displacement of the particles, the larger the displacement, the more pressure can be found in the bunching of particles, resulting in a louder sound.
Frequency:
Frequency is the number of waves (also referred to as cycles) that pass a fixed point in a given amount of time, for example cycles per second. Frequency is measured in hertz. Hertz can be described as the number of waves that pass a fixed point per second, so one hertz is one cycle per second. Frequency can be displayed on a spectrogram. The y-axis is the value of the frequency, the x-axis is time. Volume is displayed though colour, in this spectrogram the dynamics of the frequencies are displayed with yellow, meaning loud, the quieter frequencies shown in red and blue, then to black meaning silence. Spectrograms can be used as a tool to understand timbre (the quality of a sound). Different sources of sounds have different timbres as a result of overtones. Most things vibrate at more than one frequency, overtones are the frequencies that are found above the fundamental pitch. Changes in overtones can be caused by the dynamics of a sound. If a sound has very few overtones it’s described as dark whereas if it has lots of overtones it’s described as bright. An octave is double the frequency of the fundamental pitch.
Anatomy of the ear:
Sound waves are directed into the ear canal by the outer ear, the sound waves then travel through the ear canal to the eardrum. The fluctuations of pressure in the air cause the ear drum to move back and forth. This then causes three tiny bones in the middle ear to move, setting the fluid in the inner ear in motion. Hair cells can be found in the inner ear, the movement in the fluid causes them to bend, they then convert this movement into electrical impulses which are then received by the brain. Hair cells further into the inner ear receive higher frequencies, as higher frequencies travel further in fluid.
