Cedrik Fermont is a sound artist and an independent researcher based in Berlin. In his investigations he seeks to find sonic art in places that are not renowned in the canon. Places that have been left behind or ignored by the major art platforms and academic institutions. Fermont has different objectives when doing these investigations, one of the main objectives is to decolonize music and by so giving the righteous recognition to the original practitioners. Fermont in recent publications has explored sound cultures in South East Asia, focusing in electronic dance music and the underground culture surrounding it. He then presented his founding in western sound festivals like the CTM Berlin, with the purpose of educating the western artistic institutions.

In the online lecture, Fermont gave us an insight of his life and the problems that his practice conveys. From the economic and political problems of getting to distant locations, to culture and language issues when meeting with cultures distant to his own. He told us an anecdote that while in Covid times he did a journey across Africa with the purpose of investigating sound practices. Because of lockdown, he got trapped there and had to wait until the restriction where removed, stranded for weeks far from home. It was quite shocking to learn about his misfortunes, and it made me think about the ways the pandemic damaged sound art practitioners. It is worth reflecting upon this and take it in consideration in future projects, to confront or fix the problems related with sound arts.

Lucia Chung is an experimental sound and sculpture artist based in London. In her sound works, Chung has a fascination with noise and feedback generated by analogue equipment. One of her mediums of improvisation is no input mixing. This technique consists of using a mixing desk as an instrument, by connecting the output to an input of it and creating a feedback loop. This loop is then is modulated and altered to create a performance.

Above is a video showing Chung doing no-input mixing. For this improvisation Chung uses two mixing desks and then process the output through different pedal effects. The sound design Chung is able to create with this limited amount of gear is insane, the sound sources are so simple but the final outcome are powerful electronic drones and textures.

Havin a visiting Lecture with Lucia Chung was very interesting. I had heard in the past about no-input mixing but I never met anyone that actually does it. Noise music and experimentation has been a growing interest of mine. I have looked into artist such as Merzbow but I had never seen more contemporary artists.

Nicole Raymond a.k.a Nick Nack, is a Leeds based experimental turntablist and sound artist whose work encompasses different influences and themes. In her early DJ stages, she was deeply involve in electronic dance music scenes such as the dubstep scene. Originally influenced by the early British rave culture and the sound system culture. It could be said that Nik Nack’s work has now shifted into the experimental realm, exploring creative ways of using turn tables and vinyl, composing sound art pieces and performances. Her work has led her to meeting and collaborating with big names in the music world, like Madlib and Yves Tumor. Nick Nack won the Oram Award in 2020, and she’s a leading voice in promoting experimental turntablism across the UK.

Compass – Is a piece that I really enjoyed from Nick Nack. In this piece she uses atmospherical field recordings and manipulates them with her turn table and a delay pedal. By this she deconstructs the environment where the field recordings where taken, emphasising their rhythmic nature.

In the past, I just knew about Maria Chavez in the world of experimental turntablism so finding Nick Nack was a great thing for developing my knowledge in that field of practice. I would love to some day being able of use turntables in a performative way, either could be DJing or experimentation. I’m a great fan of vinyl and without a doubt is an area I have not indulged before.

The work of the Austrian sound artist Sam Auigner regularly follows the theme of hearing perspectives. The concept of thinking with you’re ears, instead of leading yourself from visual stimuli. His work is lead by collaborations with mediums outside the sound art canon, for example urban planning, architecture and design. His great talent has made him win multiple awards, from prizes of art organisations to residences at culture institutions across Europe.

As discussed before, Auigner work is deeply linked with architecture and urban design. His pieces are always set in out of the ordinary spaces, abandoning gallery spaces and opting for churches, factories and even public spaces like bridges. In the video below we can see a sound installation by Auginer where he explores the acoustic nature of the mythic and controversial Berlin venue, Berghain.

This installation is quite interesting because the sound is design to mirror the aesthetic of the place. Long industrial drones are played towards the walls of the venue, mimicking a sine tone test for acoustic measurement. The drones slowly increase in volume until a threshold where the sound violently cuts itself, leaving a resonating reverb tail.

I thought that it was fascinating targeting an installation to a specific building design, this makes sound interact in communication with space, resulting in a unique installation that could not be reproduce again in the same way. For a while now I have played in my head with the idea of contacting spaces or venues that are not linked with artistic purposes, and try convincing them to let me experiment in the place with a gallery. For the moment I have mainly thought of contacting churches, I will try contacting the priest that I interviewed for my audio paper to see if he is open to the idea.

Today I went across city of London, near by St Paul cathedral, in search of churches where I could find a priest to interview for my audio paper. After a deep thought I decided to shift the topic of my essay, focusing in contrasting DIY sound practices from the individual and the collective. For the collective I thought of spirituality and it’s connection with calmness. I decided to go to a Christian church and interview a priest that could give me an insight to what he thinks in the relationship of spirituality and calmness, and how sound can be the medium between them. I chose a Christian temple because Christianity is the most popular religion in the UK and I thought that it would connect better to what the individual might say. The interview took place in the church of Holy Sepulchre, where Reverent Nick Mottershead accepted to talk with me. Interestingly the church is considered as the national musicians church, making the practices of the temple deeply connected with sound. I went through my questions with the reverent and I got excellent responses, the reverent is quite an extraordinary man and he treated me with the finest attitude. We discussed the themes of my investigation and it seem that he was really engaged with the topic, as the church has a lot relevance with music he told me that he has indulge in ways of using sound as a medium of health and expression.

At the end of the interview I unfortunately turned of my microphone but we continued talking. He told me that in a near future the church was going to organise some sound practices, specifically creating a labyrinth inside of the church where the people passing through it will have to guide themselves through the sound and music of the church. He also invited me to come to that event and participate or even document it, he told me he was interested in my work and would like to read works of mine regarding the subject.

Without a doubt that has been the best interview I have ever made and I feel so grateful of that experience. Even though I consider myself an atheist I would like to get more in contact with the spirituality realm, to investigate its relationship with sound. Reverent Nick is a great contact to orientate me in that field of practice. The pictures below are from the church where the interview took place.

Last Thursday I attended the MA Sound Arts postgraduate show that took place in a very interesting venue called Dilston Grove, an old church converted into a gallery space. In the show, I experienced both sound art pieces and performances from the MA course students. I was deeply impressed by the pieces displayed in the gallery and I thought that every artist featured in the gallery was extremely talented. A few pieces stood out for me, the first one can be seen in the picture above, it consists of a digitally animated ball displayed in a screen and a microphone hanging from the ceiling in front of the screen (the microphone is not very visible in the picture). The microphone was connected to the visuals parameters of the animated ball, when anyone approached the microphone and talked to it the video would react to the sound source, creating weird alterations to the ball. It was a quite interactive an amusing piece of art and I found it very interesting how visual stimuli would make people change their voice when interacting with the microphone.

The picture above is another piece that I found interesting. It consisted of a turntable playing a vinyl of one of the artist of the gallery, what made the piece interesting was that people where invited to play with the velocity of the turntable, creating unique tempo alterations to the original composition of the record. A speaker was connected to the turntable and it spat the content of the vinyl to the open atmosphere of the gallery, fusing with other sounds made from the other pieces displayed in the gallery.

Finally the picture above displays my favourite piece of the gallery. This piece combines visual art, sound art and textiles into a single interactive piece. The cloth that can see in the middle between the two speakers, display a distorted map of the world, in the back of the cloth different movement sensors are attached to section of the map and then connected to a theremin that is hidden behind the curtain. Then the signal of the theremin is sent to a Pure Data patch that modulates and sequences the retrived signal into complex sound synthesis. In the bottom section of the piece a small screen was allocated in the ground displaying the Pd patch. The piece related to imagery of water and space, focusing in the textures and connotations behind maps.

The space and venue of the place where great factors in making my experience in the show very special. Every sound produce by each individual sound pieces resonated in the tall walls of the building, creating a thick texture of surround sound. I would argue that the sum up of the sounds made from the individual art pieces with the natural space of the gallery created an independent art piece it own. When focusing in each individual piece I notice how almost all shared an interactive interface, this made the exhibition accessible to any visitor. From what I learned from that exhibition I would say that Sound pieces in contrast with visual art, embrace an individual conjunctive experience, allowing for a communication and interaction between person and art.