During this session with Dawn & Ed, we explored the elements and ingredients that go into the making/creation of a live piece of work for radio, dividing these into clearly differentiated elements, including:
(the grain of) the human voice;
music as bed/foundation;
the use of song and/or poetry as colour and illustration;
As well as this, we discussed what the listener expects from this sort of work, and analysed how audio elements stand and work in contrast to each other whilst also thinking about the particular mode of listening which applies in radio.
We discussed how to create sound effects, using live ‘Foley’ techniques/methods as well as certain software. Working individually, each of us created and shared a re-working of a script, adding sound effects and atmosphere of our own choice/preference e.g. an explosion; dramatic weather; a prison or forest environment; a hammer blow to the head. Once shared with the class, we each explained in detail, how we achieved the finished product, and the steps taken to create the atmosphere of our choice. We, as a class, wanted to practice inserting live SFX (analogue and digital) into the re-work so we can use them in our final broadcast work.
Over the course of two 2 hour sessions with Jose, I have learnt and explored how to process, engulf and evoke sound in a naturalistic environment.
The second walk took place on Friday the 4th of December in Leake street arches, as well as on the Southbank.
Having built up experience using field equipment with Milo, as well as independently, this walk was designed for us to explore all the possible ways of using the sound kits, as well as recording additional sound for our compositions.
The walk began in the Arches on Leake street. Using a combination of handmade contact microphones, as well as a portable audio recorder, Harvey and I managed to record a trove of sounds in the arches. Picking up on everything from buskers, to vans unloading equipment, the mics were able to capture the bustling atmosphere of Central London, all whilst remaining within one concentrated space.
Next, was the walk to, and along the Southbank. Having been greatly inspired by Hans Zimmer’s work on ‘Blade Runner 2049’ and the world that Denis Villeneuve manages to create, I was aiming for the representation of such world within my piece, and to do that, I needed rain. As of late, I have been literally obsessed with the rain, the sound it makes, the emotions that it provokes and how it can be used within an art space, especially since the rain is used in both Blade Runner films, largely to contribute to the world that the directors are attempting to create, as well as being used to provoke emotion and thought from the audience, something I was striving for within my work.
Luckily for me, it was pouring down. The journey from Leake Street to the London eye was recorded using the portable sound recorder, cut up and used within my piece, and I am extremely pleased with what the audio was able to do within the work.
Next, Harvey and I ventured down into the car park below the Southbank theatre, and using the contact mic, we were able to pick up on and record some really interesting sounds. For example, we came across a huge metal cylinder with a gate around it. When the contact mic was placed against the metal, a largely metallic, whirring sound occurred, a sound that we thought largely deserved to be recorded, and possibly used within our work.
Over the course of two 2 hour sessions with Jose, I have learnt and explored how to process, engulf and evoke sound in a naturalistic environment.
The first walk, took place on the 27th of November, in Dulwich, South East London.
Jose led us into a park, just beside the Horniman museum. There, we were split into pairs, one being given a blindfold, the other a blind man’s cane. The task was for one to lead the other (blindfolded) through the open space, provoking the blindfolded person to listen, process and map to the world around them.
At first, I found myself at a great discomfort, having one of my major senses completely closed off, and having to rely on the others in order to comprehend what was happening. After a few minutes of this, I started to subconsciously zone out, focusing just on what I was hearing, and how I was processing each new or reoccurring sound. As well as this, I found myself attempting to visually map out the open space in front of me, in accord to what I was hearing. Due to the park being a large open space, large stretches of grass with trees wide to either side, each sound was incredibly clear, whether it be birdsong, or people talking whilst walking past.
For the second part of the walk, Jose led us into a different park: Dulwich Wood.
Once again, as soon as I was blindfolded, a sudden discomfort washed over me, although this time, only lasting around 30 seconds before I was at ease with the environment.
Dulwich wood is very different to the Horniman gardens. It is a lot denser with trees looming over you in every which way, as well as the ground being a combination of branches, leaves and mud, the sound of each step being very different to what was heard at the gardens.
Visually mapping the wood was more difficult too, with barely anyone there but us, and the birdsong seeming to be further and further away with each step. The denseness of the wood and the lack of other human presence is what ultimately distorted my senses this time. I left the second part wondering if I’d actually heard anything at all.
“We should fly”: A soundscape composed and designed to provoke the truest emotions and the fondest of memories.
Inspired heavily by Hans Zimmer’s work on the masterpiece that is ‘Blade Runner 2049”, and my own past experiences, “We should fly” is designed to send the listener back in time, to a moment where they felt most content with their environment. To provoke emotion and memory within the listener, especially a memory they hold very dear to them, is something I have always strived for within my work. To really engage with this idea of mine, I too explored and toyed with my own memories, some fond, others not so, and how those memories resonated with me at the time, and in the present. This toing and froing, calling and responding with my own memories, that took place in the process of making this piece, is something that I feel is greatly represented within the last two minutes of the scape. The back and forth between the two main synths, the tone of them ever changing, depending on the underlying bass, is not only a testament to how memories, and the emotions that come with those, are manipulated over time, but how the mind calls out to a certain memory when it Is provoked, and how the mind responds to said memory, whether that be a rush of euphoria, or a reflection of what once was.
Whilst working with Milo and Jon this term, I have explored how and why music or sound makes us feel the way we feel, think of what we think of, and how it can affect the mind and body, both negatively and positively. However, I deem the provoking of emotion and memory, even if it is not the fondest of those, to only be positive, in that to me, an emotional or even physical reaction to a piece of mine, means I have achieved what I set out to do, to make the listener think and feel.
Lisa Busby is a Scottish composer, vocalist and improvisor based in London. Situated across experimental music, performance art, and pop culture, her practice often explores processes of making, and “availablism” and lo-fi intermediality, and sound in/of movement.
Lisa opened with a short summary of the Sound And Music programme- the Uk’s national organisation for new music, and a charity.
For over ten years we have been supporting composers of all ages, inspiring young people, supporting educators, and engaging new music fans and the sector through our online platforms. Their vision is to create a world where new music and sound prospers, transforms lives, challenges expectations and celebrates the work of its creators.
Lisa expressed her interest in ‘Tangled work’: Reading from one of six scripts that she has written for her work, during one of her performance pieces. Lisa talks about often feeling uncomfortable during a live performance saying ‘I always feel like I have something hanging over me’. Further expressing her discomfort, ‘I am really fucking scared of the internet’ she says, when asked about her online discography. As well as feeling uncomfortable during a performance of her work, Lisa projects this feeling onto some of her own pieces. Many would describe some of her music as ‘menacing’ or ‘haunting’ with ‘hypnotic’ visuals to accompany it. This juxtaposition between her own feelings, and some of her own work is what makes her so intriguing.
Lisa mentioned the importance of Intersection in composition. The gaps (work) and bridges (process) is what defines the outcome of the work.
Lisa indulges in various forms of work, including audio-visual experiences, live performance art, and abstract soundscapes. When using dialogue within one of her performances, Lisa opts for Non-linear storytelling, a surefire way of confusing the audience, hoping to provoke the part of human nature in which an understanding of what is happening in front of you is vital.
Lisa works in single takes, taking a light touch with her instruments. These takes are then layered with whatever Lisa feels is needed, whether that be synth work, or naturalistic sound. Opening up on her performance anxiety, Lisa expressed the importance of focus within a live performance ‘It’s all about the moment between the artist and the instrument’, and how this focus on said moment can often distract from the peril of performing live. Mentioning newer artists in the field, Lisa expressed an interest in exploring expanding landscapes musically and sonically, as to further bolster and inspire her work.
Lisa then played the group a few of her pieces, which are documented below, along with a reaction.
-‘You and me nothing’ (maybe): A lighter visual (shadows in the sand with rocks) this time but accompanied by haunting audio. However, they do seem to create a lighter, more euphoric sound, somewhat matching the environment created by the picture. The atmospheric/lighter synths and vocals are interrupted at points by broken, ghostly sounds. With every shift in the audio atmosphere, my perception of what the picture means/stands for changes.
-Another piece: Proposal for a song. A surprisingly neutral visual: half a post-it note and some purple lines to the side. The sounds are briefly melodic, sounding somewhere between a synth lead and Morse code. The vocals that accompany it are soft, yet ultimately haunting and poetic, sounding much like the Swedish artist Bjork.. The sounds then shift to a some-what heavenly synth layers, which last for about 10 seconds before the piece abruptly stops.
-‘With you, I am in a place’: Inspired by the current, restricted performance landscape. 2 Women are sat, side-by-side. It is still. One sighs. Suddenly, a blare of sound comes from in front of the two, shielded behind the camera view. It stops and starts. A video appears behind the two women. Two men stand in a field leaning, and embracing. Almost dancing. The blare is now very low. A moaning/chanting starts from the two women seeming to accompany the video. They also share a few exchanges in between the moaning, however the audio was too distorted. It is overall, unsettling and haunting. The video stops but the chanting continues. Loud blares of sound stop and start, coming from behind the camera. The women stare, dead-eyed, slowly swaying. It is now silent. They both stare to the side briefly then one gets up (end).
After, Lisa took part in a student-led Q&A.
Q&A:
Lisa revealed that she has always sung, whether that be a School or Church choir. In that sense, she has always been a musician, despite not taking professional singing lessons until this year. Other instruments came later, when she decided to pursue a career in Sound Art. Music empowers Lisa, a reason as to why she has always been doing it. Due to the early interest in singing, Lisa always starts with her voice, explaining that that’s how she finds her place. Discussing her process, Lisa writes freely, neither in verse nor in rhyme, revealing that the take which is included in the album is more often than not, improvised. ‘Things happen in more or less 1 or 2 takes’, she states, although she does keep all the takes. wanting the work to feel as live as possible.
Expanding on her process, Lisa expressed an interest in the small sections of things, and her attitude towards non-repetition, expressing that ‘Repetition is power’.
Self awareness is important to Lisa, herself being aware of her own and the general themes within some of her work.
For future projects, Lisa aims to work with less preparation, more just going to the instruments without thought and experimenting with the result. Elaborating on this, Lisa spoke of her time spent in the digital landscape (production), and her disinterest the re-touching of work, finding it tedious, and often ending up with a less desirable, or less finished piece of work than before. Calling this ‘Anti-production’, Lisa never tries to over-layer her work, challenging what musicians and artists are ‘supposed to do’, opting out of a lot of what music usually entails, also expressing a dislike for live vocal effects, unless they are self-imposed, calling it a ‘Refusing of professionalism’.
Lisa’s preparation for projects contains a lot of unconnected prep, often curating and collecting an abundance of things she may find useful.
Getting a bit more personal, Lisa explained that she tries to not draw lines between musical and non-musical sound, expressing the dangers and limits of doing so, and how that can affect what goes into her work. Rarely knowing how her work is perceived, and rarely seeking out perceptions of her work, Lisa speaks again, of her performance anxiety, conveying that she doesn’t find things like this, or gigs easy, and takes no part social media, again saying ‘I am fucking scared of the internet’. Often feeling uncomfortable talking about her work, Lisa perceives such discussions as forcing herself and her work on others although she acknowledges that this is anxiety induced. Lisa finds that the anxiety induced feelings when talking about her work end up seeping into her work itself. Lisa’s work is ‘where I put stuff that is hard’. It’s a place where she takes the personal stuff. Inevitably difficult stuff.
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 thatwatching 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’
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?
This Thursday, I had the privilege of being able to attend an online lecture, hosted by composer, and artist Jessica Ekomane.
Jessica, born in France, is a Berlin-based technical, electronic and performative sound artist. Jessica’s craft centres around live, and interactive performances as well as installations. Often, Jessica moulds situations where the sound created, is posed as a metamorphic facet for the space, and the audience. Using Quadraphonic performances, she is able to provoke a cathartic reaction, due to frequently experimenting with psychoacoustics, the perception of rhythmic shape and the contrast between sound and melody. Jessica’s versatile and sonic terrains explore questions regarding the relationship between unique, individual perception and grouped kinetics. In 2019, Jessica released her first LP through Important Records, and in May 2020, she also released an EP entitled ‘Multivocal’.
Jessica opened with a short exploration of her inspirations and aspirations for her work, talking about the ritualistic nature of music itself, and when it is performed live. The art of performing one’s live work, whether that be to 1,000 people or 100 people, is critical to Jessica’s ethos. She aims to create the most interactive environment possible for her live performances, often playing with the capacity of one’s body and striving to achieve this ritualistic atmosphere surrounding her concerts, an atmosphere Jessica deems extremely important, when it comes to performance of Sound Art. Jessica went on to explain how working with rhythm so early on in her career, helped her to lay out the foundations of what she creates now. “Everyone can understand rhythm” Jessica states, an idea which helped to shape much of her recent work. Although Jessica’s work is largely abstract and experimental, she encourages audience members to dance, or simply engage with her work through their body’s in one way or another, explaining to us, her want for bodily interaction. This bodily interaction, dancing to abstract sound work, often provokes a cathartic reaction from her spectators, something Jessica cherishes greatly.
Jessica cites ‘Poeme symphonique’ as one of her many inspirations, fascinated by the idea of simultaneous, unique rhythms and the moving composition, as well as the long duration and ever-changing rhythms, an idea which seeps heavily into her own work, especially ‘Solid of Revolution’.
Jessica played us a live version of her piece ‘Solid of Revolution’ which is intended for Quadraphonic listening (4 avenues of sound), a technique she uses at all of her live shows. The piece contains an ever-changing rhythm, as if the music itself has a subconscious reflex, never letting one rhythm play out more than once, changing it ever so slightly. One the piece has finished, Jessica explains her interest in playing with the audience’s impulses when perceiving sound, as it is one’s bodily reflex to tune into one of the four avenues of sound, unable to evenly listen to all 4 at once. Toying with the relationship between the body and the mind, which one is thinking and which one is feeling, Jessica openly tests her audience, intrigued by how they will perceive, and what they will perceive.
Following on from ‘Solid of Revolution’, Jessica then played us ‘Club Music- comedown’ (2020, Studio Berlin). The piece uses formatted elements of EDM but with a signature twist. The piece builds several times, stops and breaks off, then restarts a disjointed build up using a different sound. The drastic contrasts between sounds used, as well as a lack of climax within the piece is what strays from your typical EDM piece, although the song does play with elements of club, house and techno music. Jessica expressed the importance of visual imagery for this particular work, inviting listeners to paint a picture in their mind, and let it change with each sound. Jessica also drew a likeness to her piece, and the breaking down of a system, whether that be political or societal, and how the piece embodies that breakage, ever stopping/starting, and never reaching it’s climax/end. She then posed the question: ‘Does having rules help with creativity”, drawing on her own experience of setting herself rules when making her work, and the benefits it can have.
Jessica then went on to talk about ‘Tribute to Whistle- German Pavilion at Venice Biennale (2019). This installation uses 6 musical pieces, each with a distinct subjectivity, to share a space and perpetually form a sociality, as they overlap, intersect and merge with one another. Using 48 speakers, 6 amplifiers, 6 audio players, different coloured speaker cables, scaffolding and lights, the installation is a tribute to the whistles used for communication between civilians. Whilst under siege from police, civilians would whistle the abbreviation of the popular phrase ‘All Cops Are Bastards’: ACAB, to warn others of police presence. As well as a scathing reminder of the Police whistles, which would have been ringing out with some velocity, at the time of the attack. The piece plays on the ‘Boatswain’s call’, a type of whistling communication used at sea by sailor’s.
Jessica concluded with a short rundown of her newest project: ‘Cashmere Radio’, an experimental, non-profit radio show, run by a community of volunteers in Berlin. The show is a creation stemming from contemporary music, and invites guests which have some influence/traction within their local scene. Jessica explains that the show is also an offered space for other voices in scenes that don’t have as much traction, and described the guests and people involved as an exciting generation of artists.
“Elliot Woods: Sound Art” is a student-run blog documenting my , online seminars and Q&A’s with some of the most interesting, and exciting sound artists in the field today, as well as steps and journeys taken in order to create and explore within this new course.
