Sound Arts – Year Two

SOURCE – “GOLDIE: ALL THINGS REMEMBERED” (GOLDIE, 2017)

An autobiography by Goldie, founder of legendary drum n’ bass label ‘Metalheadz’ and one of the godfathers of the genre. This is a book about his life but there are a lot of passages where he talks about the creation of the genre, the mindset behind it and tensions with people outside of the scene. This is a great source because it is authentic, with Goldie speaking in first person about himself instead of someone else talking about him, and reflecting on a genre that he was pivotal in innovating and pushing to the ‘outside world’.

MORE NOTEBOOK PAGES –

My initial ideas to focus the essay on Drum n’ Bass evolved slightly at first, with my broad research in terms of finding sources focusing on UK rave culture in general, as well as A.I within music and how that might influence rave culture in the future. I felt that the topic of ‘A.I in rave music’ or something along those lines was way too broad, so I refined the subject area to focus on drum n’ bass and its link to the cyberpunk ideology. In more precise terms, I have found a few sources that highlight the entanglement between producer and technology in drum n’ bass/jungle music, which really piqued my interest because a lot of my personal artistic work outside of University has been centred around the idea of man and machine colliding, and depicting myself as some sort of cyborg.

With the intensely rapid tempo of drum n’ bass comes an artificiality in that it isn’t humanly possible to construct such quickfire, fractured breakbeats and patterns without the need for a computer. I feel as though drum n’ bass is a great example of a cross-section between human ingenuity and technological advancement, and it excites me to dive into different viewpoints and reasonings as to why drum n’ bass has evolved how it has, and what it represents. As I mentioned I have found a few strong sources that I can start with, and my hope is that I continue to direct my research and perhaps find something even more specific to base a discussion around.

In terms of my sound piece element for this unit, focusing on the relationship between human and machine could be really interesting to explore through sound in the context of drum n’ bass, because I am very familiar with how the genre is produced and what the process is like. I feel that this will allow me to blur the lines a bit and explore in detail what is possible when reconstructing a breakbeat with the current technology at my disposal. Contemporary drum n’ bass producers are experimenting more and more with pushing the computer to the edge of it’s capabilities, and I think I can produce a fresh take on what the genre could be in the next few years. My aim is still to keep it sound art focused and make sure to avoid just making a drum n’ bass track, but going a little deeper and exploring how the relationship between my control as a producer and the tools at my disposal can redirect a breakbeat.

For my essay, I immediately thought of focusing on Drum and Bass and finding something specific within the genre to critically reflect on. I make a lot of Drum and Bass music and I am all too familiar with the common misconception that the culture is abrasive and unconcerned, and there is a real stigma around the genre that is perceived by those that don’t actively listen to it. My knowledge of the culture that surrounds Drum and Bass is pretty good but limited, and I feel like this essay could be an opportunity for me to dive really deep into the inner workings of the culture, the philosophies and its position in a broader context of UK music and sound. I would like to focus on D&B’s counter-cultural movement and its existence within a capitalist society, of which its framework can be critically assessed. There is also a potential to look into the techniques implemented in D&B production and the ever-present technological changes that have altered it’s perception and possibly even its definition. There are many subgenres that I could also focus on, whether that be focusing on one for the whole essay or touching on them during the essay. Exploring how these subgenres interact with one another and how they even came about could be interesting, but the only challenging thing will be figuring out what to title the essay and if I can form a strong and coherent enough argument about a facet of D&B for an entire essay. I feel as though there are limited things I could talk about, but that might be because I am simply thinking from the perspective of studying it from a social, or anthropological point of view as our recent lecture focused on that. I might be able to focus on techniques or experience but this is something that I will ultimately have to flesh out and again justify a compelling critical reflection.

BIO –

Felisha Ledesma is a Berlin based sound artist and musician. Ledesma co-founded and directed S1, a project space that hosted experimental music, performance and visual art as well as being the headquarters for the Synth Library –  a lending library for electronic music equipment. Most recently Felisha conceptualized a synthesizer, AMQR, together with instrument designer Ess Mattisson which was used on Ledesma’s releases for labels Ecstatic Recordings and Enmossed x Psychic Liberation. This collaboration led to the formation of Fors, a music technology project creating software instruments.

NOTES –

• I like the idea of S1, a ‘project space’ is a good term and it invites a wide variety of different disciplines to collaborate and share ideas
• Sound collages on CDJ’s – running through modular – very interesting approach
• Worked with Liz Harris aka Grouper – amazing ambient artist
• Having work existing in the world regardless of self perception of it is important, you can use it to reflect parts of yourself
• Enmossed x Psychic Liberation “Sweet Hour” – Record released in 2020, sweeping and jagged synth sounds – rough sonic timbres with ethereal undertones – described as a “timbral massage”
• AMQR – software based around concept of ASMR
• Designed a max for live plugin called “Superberry”, a very niche synth with interesting LFO parameters

THOUGHTS –

I enjoyed Felisha’s talk a lot. I felt that she came across in a really natural way and just by how she would explain things I could tell there was a clear passion and emotional connection with her work. The emotional connection was explained through saying that her work reflects things she’s been through or it helps her to understand certain areas of life. I have a very similar mindset so I felt like I could really connect with her, the words definitely resonated with me. I love the strong connection Felisha has to her community, and her desire to stand behind her ideas despite the fact that they could alienate a lot of people, as she put it.

Out of everything, however, it was one comment Felisha made about performing sound collages with Pioneer CDJ decks and feeding them through a modular unit that really caught my attention. I have recently begun to practice and hone my skill as a DJ and live performer, and naturally being on a sound arts course I have been thinking of how I could take the art of DJ’ing out of the very small box that most DJ’s operate in. I decided to research a little more how DJ’ing can be expanded into more experimental territory and found a whole world of Ableton Live DJ setups using samplers and Euro Rack systems, Pioneer mixer/modular hybrids and DJ setups that work outside of the traditional deck layout. This one comment from Felisha has introduced me to a new way of thinking and I would like to continue down this path as the course progresses. I might even decide to focus my essay on this, or at least use these methods as a starting point for my research.

HOW DO WE AS SOUND ARTISTS/SCHOLARS DEAL WITH OCULARCENTRISM?

This is a very difficult question to answer, because as ocularcentrists in the western world the most efficient ways of marketing our sound art, performing it, posting it online and adding an expanded context all require visuals in this particular society, where social media has a hold on our attention span and where technology has aesthetically grown to a point where many of us don’t even realise how integrated in our lives it has become. Personally I have always built visuals around my sound as a sound artist because it helps to add a narrative and more effectively grabs the attention of people. Even in our gallery project I installed an audio reactive oscilloscope and projected it – if that wasn’t there would people have spent even half the time they did experiencing it? A visual always grabs the attention of people in the western world instantly, and feeds into our ever decreasing attention spans and ever increasing pace of life and information. The issue of ocularcentrism has made me reflect on the gallery piece I did last term, and raised the question of why I felt urged to include an accompanying visual to the sound. Is it a bad thing placing vision as the top of the hierarchy of senses? It is certainly bad to consider other cultures that don’t see it as the most important as lesser, however in a society that is so dominated by image are we too far deep into our conditioning of vision as the central sense that it is almost impossible to break the cycle? A way to tackle this as a sound artist could be to exhibit work in a way that takes aesthetics out of the equation, by focusing purely on sound. This could be done by doing an installation in a completely dark room and forcing the audience to just listen, by having interactive elements that require touch or taste or smell to experience the piece in its entirety. Expanding a sound piece to be exhibited in an environment that culminates in multi-sensory experience would detract from the importance of vision, e.g. if a sound piece was held in a cool room with deliberate attention to the surfaces, the walls, the feeling of the air, the smell of the environment, the temperature. These considerations would arguably make a sound piece be ‘felt’ in an even more profound and intimate way. But even then I struggle to see how there would be a way to distance an audience from the perception of the dominance of sight without making a room pitch black. Even concerts are judged by the stage design and lighting, so I’m not sure if we will ever get out of this ocularcentric way of thinking.

I am a little nervous but excited to start this new unit, which builds on the content explored in earlier units like ‘Sonic doing and thinking’. Nervous because this seems like the most intense of all the units so far as it consists of a literature review (which I have never done before), a 4000 word essay and a research project proposal, as well as a creative sound piece related to the essay topic and supporting blog. It is a dense project with a lot of different elements so it is important that I balance each of them and manage my time well.

ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE SENSES –

Our first lecture focused on this idea of the western anthropology of the senses and how important it is to consider our assumptions when studying different cultures or subjects unfamiliar to us that derive from being conditioned to think in a way that only takes into consideration our western perspective. I read Constance Classen’s ‘Foundations for an anthropology of the senses’ article and picked out some quotes and excerpts that stuck out to me. Classen’s current research centres on the history of the senses in the West. She is the author of ‘Inca Cosmology and the Human Body’ (1993), ‘Worlds of Sense: Exploring the Senses in History and Across Cultures’ (1993) and ‘Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell’ (1994), cowritten with David Howes and Anthony Synnott.

My feedback from our previous assignment ‘Specialising and Exhibiting: Element 2’ was overall very good, but the one aspect of my work that I was told I need to improve on is my enquiry and knowledge. This is down to lacking the breadth of research in the subject matter I am focusing on and this has made me understand that it is vital for me to situate my work within a wider field of possibilities. Sometimes I feel that if I don’t initially understand something I tend to choose to not delve into it and take the time to fully comprehend it, which is certainly something that I need to do in this unit to do well, and also something that I think will benefit my critical thinking and ultimately my artistic voice. For this reason I am going to actively engage with all of the material so I can understand it and relate it to my work; anthropology is a good example of this as I don’t have too much experience in operating in this field.

I find it fascinating how Classen picks apart sensory perception and clearly explains how it is as much if not more a result of the society and culture we are a part of as it is a physical sensation. She points to our senses and how we perceive them being influenced by our mental conditioning based on our culture, for instance in western culture we are conditioned to think that touching people in any way is rude and invasive, whereas other cultures see this as respectful and it is much more commonplace. I can understand from this the level of critical thinking needed to put forward a strong and cohesive argument, because Classen challenges common ideas of sensory perception and is aware of her bias within her thoughts toward it.

The ‘meaning’ of a sensory experience can vary drastically from culture to culture and I feel this is an important point to reflect on because whatever topic I decide to focus on for my essay I need to be able to identify the cultural bias that would affect my perception of it and challenge this in order to critically assess it in a fair way. As my notes above explain, ‘Ocularcentrism’ means a cultural bias in favour of vision, which is a good example of a sense being perceived in a certain way. In western culture we perceive vision as the most important sense, because our way of thinking has progressed in such a way that we identify sight as they key to knowledge; it supposedly highlights a more evolved society through our history of relating vision to the “mind’s eye” and the idea of visual metaphors and meanings. It is an issue such as this that I would need to address if I was speaking on another culture that don’t perceive the ‘heirarchy’ of senses in the same way to me as someone who has grown up within a western culture.

“The anthropology of the senses…argues that we must try to understand the values of the various senses within context of the culture under study and not in context of the anthropologists own culture” (Classen, p402-403)

This quote strengthens this idea that it is vital to understand your position as an anthropologist and not feed into the social normalities that dictate your perception on sensory experience.

I have also noted above that I need to focus and improve on an aspect of my practice. As I mentioned earlier in this post, the most important thing I need to work on is my academic enquiry, because it will help me a lot to situate myself in a broader field and understand what the field consists of. These are things that I need to think about moving forward.

REFERENCES –

moodle.arts.ac.uk. (n.d.). Arts Moodle: Log in to the site. [online] Available at: https://moodle.arts.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/1291407/mod_resource/content/1/Constance_Classen_foundations_anthropology_senses.pdf

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BIO –

Pamela Z is a composer/performer and media artist who works primarily with voice, live electronic processing, sampled sound, and video. A pioneer of live digital looping techniques, she processes her voice in real time to create dense, complex sonic layers. Her solo works combine experimental extended vocal techniques, operatic bel canto, found objects, text, digital processing, and wireless MIDI controllers that allow her to manipulate sound with physical gestures. In addition to her solo work, she has been commissioned to compose scores for dance, theatre, film, and chamber ensembles including Kronos Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, the Bang on a Can All Stars, Ethel, and San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. Her interdisciplinary performance works have been presented at venues including The Kitchen (NY), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (SF), REDCAT (LA), and MCA (Chicago), and her installations have been presented at such exhibition spaces as the Whitney (NY), the Diözesanmuseum (Cologne), and the Krannert (IL). Pamela Z has toured extensively throughout the US, Europe, and Japan. She’s a recipient of numerous awards including the Rome Prize, United States Artists, a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation residency, the Guggenheim, the Doris Duke Artist Impact Award, Herb Alpert Award, an Ars Electronica honorable mention, and the NEA Japan/US Friendship Commission Fellowship. She holds a music degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder.

NOTES –

• Gestural voice looping and manipulation, using operatic tones to layer sound
• Combining singing, spoken word, ambience and musique concrete sounds
• Considers instrument to be combination of voice and electronics
• Would use large general theme to formulate vignettes, then use electronic methods to fuse them together, acting as a glue
• ‘Baggage Allowance‘ – performance/sound installation revolving around idea of being a foreigner in a different country – mixture of spoken word, staccato and drawn out vocals, live performance, props – very organic yet abstract presentation method

• Baggage Allowance also an interactive exhibition featuring suitcases with people sleeping inside them, draws that triggered samples when opened and other random objects about the theme – I like the interactivity because it makes the audience feel more involved in the piece
• Works composing with string quartets

THOUGHTS –

In all honesty I didn’t take much from this talk, besides the open minded and seemingly limitless approach that Pamela brings to her art. I found the technical side of her practice very interesting especially when she explained how her process and subsequent artistic direction has changed alongside the technological advances she has experienced over her career. Pamela spoke about her early work and how it was more boxed in to a strictly musical space, whereas now her practice is one of the most expansive I’ve seen from a guest lecturer, including installation, composing for string quartets, live performance art, multi channel, video, spoken word and interactive exhibitions.

When I say I didn’t take much from the talk I guess I mean more that I didn’t feel as though I connected with Pamela or her vision that much, but I still appreciated the skill, forward-thinking and openness to explore any possible avenue. This is a mindset that I have been trying to get myself into more and more and I feel I have expanded my practice this year especially, but sometimes I still feel as though I shut certain areas of sound practice out because I don’t understand them, whilst a more open mindset could lead me down paths that I find unlock an undiscovered side of my creativity. Only time will really tell but for now I am happy with my practice, however this talk has made me consider how being a sponge to other people’s ideas, influences and visions can benefit me both in the work I make and the future of my life within sound.