Today’s online session with Milo was opened with an exploration of the canon of Sound Art. Who are the originators, within the said discipline/scene/field? Who creates the most noteworthy/well-known sounds/work? Who tries to dictate what can/can’t be recognised/played within the field? Or, who creates this History? What’s not being talked about? A lot of our sessions often open with questions such as these, and provoke an abundance of responses.
We went on to look at: Audio Viewing- Michel Chion (sound for screen). Michel Chion argues that watching films is more than just a visual exercise. It provokes the process of audio-viewing. The audiovisual makes use of a wealth of tropes, devices, techniques, and effects that convert multiple sensations into image and sound, rendering – instead of reproducing – the world through cinema.
When asked what Sound Arts means to us, the group submitted a range of responses:
-‘A way of representing the un-representable’
-‘Sound Art should elicit a shift in subjectivity’
-‘An expression that needs no explanation’
-‘Challenging concepts of Sound’
-‘A mode of experience’
-‘Brain Stimulus’
-Religious experience/sensation/transcending trigger
-‘Rendered’ sound
-‘An experience of a negotiated constant’
Later on, we discussed the importance of music venues, and what they offer to us as an audience. ‘To share a space, listening with a bunch of people, is an important key to understanding how the whole social fabric is changing every second’. Artists such as Jessica Ekomane like to include physical and interactive tropes within their live sets: Seeing sound as an extremely physical thing. Sound as a Sculpture. This is an exploration of Phenomenology, the study of consciousness as experienced from the FPPOV. The central structure of an experience is its intentionality, its being directed toward something, as it is an experience of or about some object. Live experiences are a way of ‘pushing out’ the everyday. (Galleries, Venues, Studios) ‘Constant Immersion’ (Charlie Fox).
This led on to a discussion about how we, as humans, process sound and how we each respond to it in our own unique way. Why Sound? was posited, as sensitivity levels differ with different senses. It’s thought that one’s environment from a young age can ultimately determine how one’s senses react to high or low levels of sound, so how does this impact someone at an older age. Does this determine their taste in music? Their response to certain sounds? Are there certain ‘trigger’ sounds birthed from their early environment? Sound is a form of information, which makes us ‘A machine for information’: Janet Cardiff, Cathy Lane (‘A History of Sound Art’)
Cultural perspectives is something to be thought about too. Is our environment subject to our own perceptions? Is there a clear dividing line between our environment and our perceptions?