LOOP PROFESSIONAL MEETINGS Title: Musical Objects: the Problem of Sound Format1 Lead by: Lluís Nacenta Professor, writer and curator Participants: Anne-Laure Chamboissier Curator Lúa Coderch Artist Anna Dot Artists Wolfgang Gil Artist Laura Llaneli Artist Barbara Held Curator and musician Daniel Neumann Artist Anna Ramos Co-director, ALKU Anki Toner Collector and musician 2
Meeting report by Lucila Piffer
TOPICS: Sound art, musical objects, objective approaches to sound, compromises of sound art creations. 1. Sound’s physicality and sound experiencing: two approaches There are different ways of thinking and understanding sound. How do the physical and psychological aspects of sound relate to each other? Is it possible to get rid of cultural implications of hearing? •
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Sound is a common element in very different disciplines such as poetry, music or sound art, and it can be thought independently of the specific practices where it’s used. There are two ways of thinking about listening: one the one hand, focusing about sound in its material, objective aspect (waves, rhythms); or else understand it as an experience in certain context, a process from subjectivity, which enables us to share the listening act. It’s possible to approach sound from one of both perspectives, but somehow both are constantly interconnected. Sound art can’t be thought and discussed referring only to the act of listening, because behind the question about the listener there’s always the problem of which the object of the listening act is. There is also the question about the need to use the term music, which can be sometimes very restrictive because it frames the object that produces sound in a historical context of music notation, history of music, composers. It might not be the right crystal to look through. Music has a very heavy connotation, so sound could be thought as a physical phenomenon, without focusing on its aesthetical meaning. The concept of hyperobject can be a useful tool to understand sound in its not physical-localized aspect.3
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The meeting was held on Friday 5 June 2015. The present report aims to provide a summary of the discussions that took place during the meeting. It does not aim to be a transcription of the conversations, so we emphasize its summary character. 3 2
Timothy Morton on his book ‘‘The Ecological Thought’’: ‘‘Hyperobjecs are objects so massively distributed in time and space that get to transcend localization. They are both human made and not human. They are difficult to observe, they outscale us and/or outlast us in disturbing ways, disrupting our
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There’s the need to talk about sound somehow. We need to relate to sound objects in the sense that working with sound means dealing with things around us. Those thing become objects when they capture the listener’s attention, when he tries to know them or discuss about them. How can we get rid of the cultural implications of hearing? Can be approach an objective notion of sound as something completely disconnected from perception? We perceive our experience anthropomorphically. It’s impossible to abandon subjectivity, but it things can also be considered from other perspectives: in this way, object-oriented ontology can give us new tools to observe things or at least question ourselves. Musical environment produces a space that has not to do necessarily with the physical space. We gather our understanding of space not necessarily only through our eyes: we do have space notions through sound. That’s a phenomenon that hasn’t been really explored in music context. There is a lot to investigate about physicality, phenomenological aspects of sound, how we perceive and feel it beyond the ear.
2. The sound object 4 What’s a sound object? How do different artists or curators relate to this idea? What are the remarkable differences between the idea of music and the concept of sound object? How do perception conditions and context influence our listening? •
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The concept of musical object5 is a good perspective to discuss sound. It doesn’t have to do with the musical format (CD, vinyl, mp3 player), which is a more restricted way of talking about musical art. Be attached to the physical aspect is problematic because it limits the notion of musical object. Thinking in terms of sound object gives a frame to develop an idea of what happens when music goes out beyond the speaker and produces a sensation that the mind renders as if there was an object in space. The way people hear when they are told something is sound art is different than when they are told it is music. Anyway, some artists affirm that they don’t need to think about musical objects to create sound art and develop their work. Still, other people who want to work with detail the so called sound nature find it oppressive to have their work called music. By calling sound music you are making it language. This should be avoided, so it becomes possible to listen in a most proper way. It’s important to notice that his concept operates as a statement as well: it’s a way to make musicians aware that there’s a whole world of possibilities to explore, which can be approached in this terms. On the other hand, some may think the idea of sound object could be forced, and invite to think music in inadequate terms, such as calling a sculpture ‘‘a 3D painting’’.
This term invites us, in a way, to make a reflection about the different ways of producing, using and understanding sound. Which are the limits of this concept? notions of world, horizon and environment. The hyperobject is not a function of our knowledge, its hyper relative to worms, lemons and ultraviolet rays as well as humans’’ 4 We use sound object and musical object in an interchangeable way, since the discussion about these terms was not categorical about to the need to privilege one over the other. 5 Term created by Pierre Schaeffer, who defines it as an acoustical object for human perception and not a mathematical or electro acoustical object for synthesis.
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There are hierarchic and power relationships between the performance and the listening. An investigation about this ought to be developed in the future. It’s maybe possible to thing also in terms of sound events in some cases: for example, when speaking and modifying the movement of the air. There are yet some questions about what a sound object is: is somebody’s voice explaining a sound project a sound object itself? Is this a listening experience? What happens with something, which is not sound but can evoke it? Another example: YouTube artists which record the whole creation process and then upload it so it can be seen and heard. Sometimes an object is also the description of the object itself. Many times images travel in a very poor body, with very little information, and there’s the need to use the imagination to understand the image.6 Can we really separate facts from words? There are experimentations around this question: for example, by analyzing how the title determines the way we approach a painting, and what happens when it gets changed. In relation to sound art, it’s impossible to talk about only one thing. There is a lot surrounding the object. Music is always happening right here, and it’s full of fiction, meanings and words, its context and what we find in it. 7 Some art doesn’t care about sound itself and focuses on what sound brings with it.
3. Exploring formats, compromising with music The support in which a sound or musical piece is consigned influences the way the work is conceived. How does the format restrict or condition the artist and the perception? How can creators relate to different supports and make them an aspect of their investigation? What are the limits of compromise? •
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A musical or sound object has a double nature: in a way it’s what allows someone to share something, but the physical support can be used as well as a way to reduce the circulation of music through an artificial reproduction of scarceness; for example, by distributing music in a cassette or vinyl. It’s also an economic issue; a way of restricting the number of people that can get the artwork and make it therefore is less distributable. The issue of compromise is raised: every format requires the artist a certain compromise, and restricting the listening situation might mean compromising less and less. Anyway, it may be problematic if an artificial restriction is imposed. New technologies allow many people to have access, so it’s important to think about the logic of putting an arbitrary restriction; it’s not about releasing something in a format because it looks cool, expensive or exotic, but because it makes sense. It’s interesting to explore what you are compromising with and make sure that it’s not this artificial compromises put on top. On the other hand, digital is also restricted on time and space. Everything we do is restricted, so to criticizing vinyl or cassettes because of it is, at least, problematic. When making a performance, the artist compromises with many things: from the institution where it’s developed, to the physical conditions that are imposed to the work. The point is not to lose interesting aspects of the artwork by compromising unnecessarily, and avoid making the experience unrecognizable because of imposed, abstract restrictions.
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Hito Steyerl on her book ‘‘In Defense of the Poor Image’’ Maurice Merleau-Ponty
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It’s interesting to make decisions about the listening context: it’s in the end unavoidable. Anyways, it’s important to be aware that there is a part that remains out of reach for the artist, which has to do with the impossibility to control people’s thoughts. It never happens that the conditions are ideal. Negotiation with institutions is also part of the deal: that’s what makes it interesting. Nevertheless, there is always a line that shouldn’t be crossed, and the artist should be aware of this in order to be trust to his work. It’s also interesting to think about the mass-media, such as radio programs. What radio producers care about? Radio is very open in a way because everyone can relate to it, but also puts on the table the issue of time, which is very compact, and then it has a responsibility to give sound the right context for listening.
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Sound can be thought as an experience -in which perception has a very important role- or as an objective, physical thing. The concept of sound object is a good perspective to refer to sound somehow and discuss about it. It allows us to move away from a point of view, which is normally impregnated by music history. The different, possible relationships between performance and listener are a rich source for future investigations. Every format requires from the artist a certain compromise. The artist might make out of this compromises interesting investigations about the way the format/support influences on his work. It’s interesting to make decisions about the listening context, and also we aware that many aspects escape the artist’s decisions.