Last week I went into the performance lab in LCC to finally record the performance of my creative sound work. I took my equipment and set the visual score/photo slides in the projector, while performing as I mentioned in passed blog posts, I used the photo slideshow containing my analogue pictures and used it as score to record in only one take my piece. Prior to the recording, I found this performance by upsammy for the Dutch festival Dekmantel Connects 2020, where she only uses an octatrack in her set. The performance is also mirrored by great video game like visuals, that probably where created in blender, that add a glitch and futuristic aesthetic to the performance. This video inspired me to further expand this project to also use visuals, maybe get some knowledge in Touch Designer and create a rough experimental audio reactive patch. Also I found upsammy’s performance so varied and texturally rich, I thought that it was quite impressive how much she did just using the octatrack.
The following image is my layout towards recording the set. I placed my synth and my sampler in a table in front of the big screen and when ready to record used the main computer and the interface. As previously mentioned I record it in only one take to prevail the performative aspect of it. Now looking back that was a bit annoying as I struggled in some of the transitions, from picture to picture. But well, as this work was a research into alternative modes of composing and performing, failure and trial and error are important building blocks. I would like to expand this work with now using audio reactive visuals, I would also like to learn how to create visuals and I’m curious to see if anyhow it will also affect my sound composition. Also I came out with the name for this project: Pigmented Ghost, this name comes from the idea that I’m adding colour to the picture and because they are black and white, it resembles like a format ghost. At the same time I think the name creates imaginary of the soul and the afterlife, that where never an objective when developing this idea, but at the end a great extra feature.
Hong Kong original Samson Young is a multi-disciplinary artist working across audio visual mediums such as music, video art, sound art, and performance. His work has lead him to exhibit in galleries across the world, including the Guggenheim Museum, Gropius Bau, Osaka National Art Museum, Arz Electronica and various biennales across the world. His practice comes from a music background, studying composition in important institutions across the world. After his PHD in music composition, his practice has lead him into music technology and digital sound making. Currently he is involved in various research groups regarding physical modelling, a type of synthesis that seeks to correctly model instruments digitally, with the power to replicate in detail the sound of that instrument to a point of no recognition between the original one and the plug-in. Young’s research also includes the concept of modelling in the computer science world, asking questions regarding the importance of these models and the assumptions that are taken when dealing with this models. Possible Music (2018) sound installation is one of Young’s projects where he seeks to create impossible instruments with modelling techniques. Designing with algorithmic manipulations, instruments that acoustically could not be possible in the real world. For the installation Young included sculptures of the instrument he modelled digitally and then hid speakers that played a small composition made with the instruments created by the physical modelling.
The picture above is from the installation, the massive trumpet mouth pieces in the walls have the exact measurements of the instruments modelled in the algorithm. In the sound piece, Young also experiments with the exciters of these instruments, using imaginary situations for this instrument to be played. For example he modelled that these massive mouth pieces where going to be played by a twenty meter dragon, inside of an olympic stadium. The results are incredibly unique and bizarre, hinting powerful surreal imaginations in the listener.
An interesting technique that Young has been using in his work is the ‘Boids Algorithm’, an algorithm design to correctly model the flocking of birds. This algorithm is then used to sequence and trigger music, aligning and disarranging tones and timbres in the manner a flock of birds will move an interact.
The Immortals (2019-2020) – Is a collaborative work of Young with musicians and artists: Dither, Michael Schiefel and Eliza Li. The work consist of an animated cantonese opera, combining multimedia as theatre, electronic music and quartet string music. This piece has a great influence in video games, animating dance and theatre with a very lo-fi digital aesthetic, making the piece quite surreal and parodical. In the narrative of the opera the project uses a lot of contemporary, post-industrial objects, giving the piece a juxtaposition between the old cantonese dresses and style, with modern objects such as cranes and construction work. The music also has this video game aesthetic, composed with low bit-depth synthesisers and catchy ostinato, giving the animation energy and a sense of forward momentum.
In reflection I think his use of very complex digital technology gives his pieces great aesthetically and conceptual depth. Also the fact of his proficiency in multiple mediums make his works much more impressive, flexibly changing between music, theatre, animation and sculpture create a surround composition that has endless ways of interpretation and analysis. His visiting lecture inspired me in the upcoming musical technologies, for example the research group NESS and its physical modelling. I’m curious to see how far this concept can reach and to what extent would they be able to replicate the real world with digital mediums. His idea of using impossible imaginary sonic situations and then make them hearable with the software, promoted in me an interest to think of imaginary situations such as the ones for the project. I’m curious to see for example how a guitar would sound in another planet with different pressure, and what if that guitar was being played by a giant hand made of paper. Quite a surreal image, but does the picture in my head of the sound that the guitar would make, could it match somehow with what the software will render? I guess I will never find out.
The following are recordings of small experimentations I did towards preparing me for the performance of the creative sound work. In these recordings I explore techniques regarding tone tone and texture, and explore generative practices that I plan to use for the performance. The recording below shows purely the generative system I created, no live manipulation is added to the composition.
The second recording above has also some generative systems sent to a Minologue XD and some live manipulated drums. For the final piece I will not use drums or percussive elements, I just use them for this recording to explore how drums could connect to the self evolving melodies of the synth.
Following the idea of creating a composition that evokes abstract images similar to visual art, I thought about the possibility of creating some sort of visual score to guide myself through the performance. As discussed in part one, I attempt for this composition to apply visual aesthetic characteristics, for example exploring forms as colour, texture and tone in a sonic form. I concluded that to properly achieve this I would have to guide myself visually with something, not necessary with a score or an alternative graphic score, but with an image that allows me to translate its character in to sound. After my recent new practice in analogue black and white photography, I thought of the idea of using my own pictures and colour them through sound. My theory consist revolving the idea that when I use the black and white picture to create my performance, I’ll manage to pair vision and sound in my mind, creating and altered state of consciousness that will transform my approach when performing. This exercise in essence is an attempt to generate synesthesia in the listener. Synesthesia is a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway (for example, hearing) leads to an automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway (such as vision) (Psychology Today, 2022). My hypothesis is that the audiovisual interaction will help the sound provoke abstract messages and images in the listener, and hopefully induce as state of calmness and peace. This new approach made me rethink what form would my sound piece take, I could use the pictures only as a creative aid for me when performing, or I could show the audience a small clip of the picture so they can associate with the music. The following are the pictures I took and that I will use as a graphic score.
Environment is the recurring theme with these photographs. I chose to photograph locations instead of objects with the purpose of documenting sceneries. It could function of a sort of map that provokes my self memories of such environments. The black and white aspect of the pictures shifts the focus towards texture and tone. Both because of the textural characteristic of the pictures and the environmental theme surrounding them, they work quite well for me to use as canvases, and colour them with sound.
Because of my recent class in practice based research, it made me question myself if somehow this performance in a way had a research purpose. As discussed before I have build up in my head a methodological procedure, where I seek to provoke in my self and the listener synesthesia, with the purpose of expanding the composition aesthetically and to explore if it’s a resource for inspiration. When planning this composition it never came to my mind that I was undertaking a research, but as the idea developed I concluded that I structured everything in a manner to get a result from an experiment. Even though at this point I have to admit that my creative sonic piece has become a research, I refuse to formally address and analyse the results of the outcome. As with my original concept, I want the piece to be as abstract as possible, allowing a discoverability in the listener. If I decide to formally present a conclusion or analysis to the outcome of the research, the aesthetically properties of the piece will diminish in importance, and thus attention will be drawn away from abstractness.
To clarify why this creative sound work will be a performance instead of a composition, the live aspect of the performance will give the opportunity to any type of error or failure. As seen in the practice based research lecture, failure is a key element of research as it shapes the creation of knowledge. If I compose the piece instead of performing it, the form of it will be consolidated in to a singular perfect state, taking away the research and analytical factors that failure comes with.
Form
The final form of the creative sound work will consist of a 10 minute performance, recorded in a single take next week in the performance lab. Each picture seen above will represent a quarter of the time of the composition. I’ll use the pictures as score to structure the different sections of the composition. My hand-in is going to be a 10 minute video portraying the pictures and my performance, every 2 and half minutes the picture will change announcing the next section of the composition.
Kenian electronic musician and sound artist, currently doing the MA in Sound Arts in Berlin’s UDK. KMRU explores the genre of ambient music through his experience and practice in field recording and sound walks. His origin in the outskirts of Nairobi expose KMRU to a nature rich soundscape, developing listening techniques and an acute awareness on the space and environment. Releases such as Peel and Logue have created a name for KMRU in the electronic music scene, working and collaborating with the biggest institutions and organisations, such as Ableton and Adam Audio. Performance is a key aspect of KMRU’s work, using minimal musical equipment with the philosophy of exploiting such to their furthest technical capabilities, instead of having a big array of tools, having less control over them. KMRU seeks with his practice to shift or turn around the image of the African musician and composer, opening way to the electronic music field and sonic experimentation, trying to brake with the categorisation of African music as purely folkloric. Alongside Ableton, KMRU has created music production workshops across his country, introducing electronic music tools and techniques to the youth with the purpose of provoking an interest in the medium.
Under The Bridge is a documentary about KMRU’s field recording practice, exploring questions of the matter such as: what/who/why/where are you listening?. His research surrounds the concept of ‘listening as being’, investigating the social relations of a community with the soundscape of the place. In the documentary, KMRU goes back to sceneries of his past and applies this framework to analyse the transformation of such environment across time. This analysis has an ecological and social objective. Kibra was KMRU’s next step in his research, consisting of recording and sound mapping one of Nairobi biggest slum’s (Kibra) and creating a set of ambient compositions with them. Tinted drones and melancholic tones are paired with sounds of the city, colouring and associating an emotion to the ecology of the place, attempting to bring to light the socio-political issues of that part of Nairobi. The poverty, government neglection and misery of Kibra are exposed in these compositions, using sonic evidence as its driving source.
Luckily I had the opportunity to meet KMRU a couple of months ago. Me and a group of friends went for dinner with him, at then end of the evening I had some chance to speak one to one with him. We talked about both our works, and he gave me some insights and tips to reach out to organisations in order to promote my work. KMRU told me in detail how his creative process takes part, and how performing in more established venues had shaped his work in order to expand his technical capabilities. After a performance KMRU had in the Barbican, he realised that his work sometimes failed to meet the sonic range of the sound system in those stablished venues. As his experience started in a Lo-Fi minimalistic studio and set-up, he was not used to detailed systems. Even though his lack of experience in this systems, KMRU told me with enthusiasm that he had found the opportunity of composing up to 8 bass voices with those systems, finding a refreshing new field in his own compositions. I found this to be deeply inspiring, not because I found out that detailed sound systems could actually give me the possibility to explore more complex frequency structures in my practice, but to see that an artist with a long and successful trajectory in the field managed to frequently discover new rewarding aspects of the medium and find joy and reward from them. It made me feel more comfortable with the future of my practice as I have to admit that the dreadful thought of stagnation has passed through my head. But to see a practitioner with such enthusiasm in a new discovery made me realise that stagnation in my creative process could only be a transition state, and that I could always manage to find another field or aspect to experiment with.
A few weeks back I had the invitation to DJ for a photography exhibition in the Copeland Gallery in Peckham. For the set I decided to only play ambient music tracks, this was the first time I’ve ever chosen this music genre to perform with. As normally a gallery space has a quite calm environment, ambient music suited perfectly for the space and mirrored the pieces exhibited. The music in the event worked similar to Erik Satie’s Musique d’ameublement, it tinted the room as a perfume, it didn’t drawn the publics attention away from the photography but just sat comfortably in the back, setting a calm environment. DJing ambient music is quite similar to listening to it, not a lot of focus is needed to keep it going but in the case you want to focus in it, the music will provide rich sonic depth. This made my experience extremely pleasant when performing, helping me connect with the audience in a subconscious level. The picture below shows the set-up of my set and the gallery.
The only certain thing I have about my creative sound piece is that I want to create a performance. My recent experience playing live (both in the gallery and in Loop cafe) have both been extremely pleasurable and changed my mode of listening, I want to explore other ways of performing and utilise performance as a way of composition. After the experience in the Copland gallery, I decided to create a performance of ambient music for the creative sound work, but now instead of mixing I would use my live setup. The setup will enable me to use my own sonic resources and to improvise with them, deconstructing and manipulating recordings and synthesis to create the aesthetic of ambient music.
Generative music has been a recurring tool I have used in my work, utilising it both for installations and compositions. I like to think that creating art generatively is similar to collaborating with the technology you have instead of using it as a tool. I’ve never tried to perform before using generative techniques but it seems as the perfect time now to experiment with it. Ambient music has an origin in generative practices, for example Brian Eno experimenting with tape looping, so I guess the performance style and music genre will be compatible. Going back to the theme of virtuosity that I mentioned in a past post, exploring performance through the use of generative techniques and managing to make cohesive piece could be considered quite challenging. When thinking of performing a piece of music with an instrument, what comes to mind is the physical motion of plucking, slapping, blowing or touching an interface that will because of its acoustical or technological nature create a sound. When performing with a generative system, not just the actual timbre of the sound can be played with but also the probability and algorithm in which sound can be triggered or modulated, creating another dimension to manipulate within a performance.
To make this generative performance possible, a lot of things will need to be pre-composed before the actual event. But once in the performance there will be space for improvisation. What I find appealing of this approach in my performance is that in the future I could play again with this same system and material and get different results. The next step towards achieving this will be learning how I could implement generative processes in my Octatrack and make them communicate with my synth.
The form of my creative sound work is still at question. My current sound practice has shifted through forms in an agile manner, jumping around techniques and styles and failing to properly adopt one to create my end of year piece. In the year I have created works in installation, sound for film, music and performance, enjoying and exploring these forms to some extent. But as mentioned in the previous blog post, I found my self in a point of great indecision, not knowing what path to take towards the creation of the end of term sound work. In this blog post I will lay out an array of ideas, inspirations and concepts with the purpose of organising my thoughts and start planning my piece.
Visual Media
This year, my life and artistic work has been influence by visual art as no other time before. I have explored mediums such as photography, film and abstract painting, developing new activities such as analogue photography. As I’ve been working in the sound design for a film of a friend of mine I have investigated an indulged into art cinema. I watch films by directors such as Andrei Tarkovsky, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Eric Rohmer, and payed detailed attention to its cinematography and image. Furthermore I have become obsessed with quite abstract painting, artists such as Joan Miro and Nicolas de Staël that are characteristic of leading their art through tone and texture instead of clear define shape and narrative. What I like about the directors and painters I just mentioned above is their ability of freezing or distorting time through the use of image and tone. When experiencing pieces of any of these artistI find myself hypnotised, frozen to the place and time I find my self in. Instead of focusing in the narrative of the pieces, I focus in the details of the texture and extract from them abstract messages, similar to dreams. What I would argue that these directors and painters share (at least in the works I have seen) is the ability to induce peace, calmness and tranquility in the audience. But at the same time I think that this induction in the audience is a by-product of the visual aesthetic instead than an objective of the artist. Mark Le Fanu (2017) for an essay for the Criterion Collection described Tarkovsky’s Stalker as “marvellous moments of peacefulness, silence and sleep”. For my creative sound work I would like to create a piece that has a similar effect as the works I have mentioned above, create a sonic object that induces calmness, satisfaction and hypnosis in the same way visual art causes it.
The videos and pictures below are a small example of the visual art I have been inspired by. The video essay is an analysis and comparison of Rohmer’s film My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend and paintings by Nicolas de Staël.
On the 9th of April I performed my first ever Live set in the Loop cafe in south Tottenham. The venue is a small cafe and restaurant that occasionally hosts live music events. From experimental electronic music to hiphop workshops. The music I performed in the event was mainly Down Tempo electronic music, a quite mellow but rhythmic type of electronic music that suited the atmosphere perfectly. My set-up consisted of an Elektron Octatrack as the brains, a Monologue XD as my lead synth and a Volca Beats that was in charge of most of my drums during the performance. For the performance I triggered samples from the Octatrack and programmed my own sequence in the XD and the Volca. To layer up things I creatively sampled through the Octatrack, allowing me to record and loop a sequence from the XD and then change the parameters of the synth to layer on top of what was recorded. Most of the performance was improvised as I programmed the sequence with random notes and changed the parameters on the spot. The performance got me in an extremely detailed listening state, where I had to be in focus at all times and figure out the best sonic resources I needed to develop the performance. Whilst improving, I entered a smooth state of hypnosis created by the rhythms, my internal clock and brain felt every beat carefully and managed to experience my music in a vivid and emotional way. This for me was extremely unusual, as I had not experience this since I started playing instruments when I was ten years old. As this performance allowed me to explore sound design in the moment, it was a new performative feature I’ve never experienced before.
For my creative piece, I’ve felt a bit lost in what direction to take. Through out the year I have explored multiple mediums and enjoyed working in each, so my indecision problem comes from me liking everything and wanting to the everything at the same time. Instead of like in other occasion where I lack inspiration. One of my ideas for the creative piece is doing a performance similar to the one in the Loop Cafe, just that I would like to experiment with more complicated themes that would not be as adequate for that cafe. Virtuosity is a theme that I have come across frequently in my practice and in self reflection I would have to admit that I had never achieved it. For my piece I will like to use my same set up but take its capabilities to non-conventional ways and exploit its resource.
Japanese sound artist and instrument designer, Makoto Oshiro explores different disciplines in his practice through technical exploration. Oshiro is currently based in Berlin and has worked in studios, labels and galleries of the city. His instruments are created with the combination of electronics and every day tools and junk. Managing to circuit bend objects and produce sound, but his work doesn’t focus just in the sonic aspect of the circuit bending but in the actual physical movement of the tool, playing with its character and trying to associate another meaning to such object.
Kachi Kachi – is a piece by Oshiro, released in Cafe Oto’s label Otoroku. The instrument of this piece was created by using Electro Magnetic Relay, that are basically switches turned on and off by a magnet connected to a coil, when current passes by the polarity of the magnet changes and the switch is turned on or off. The instrument is controlled by a 555 timer IC, that is more or less a square wave sending triggers to the switch. Oshiro consider these switches as acoustic oscillators, because the sound source is actually a small wooden pallet hitting the border of the component instead of the sound of the square wave. Furthermore Oshiro uses a Speed Xiao to send multiple digital and analogue triggers to the Kachi Kachi, this way syncing more than one apparatus and creating complex rhythms.
Mono-Poly (2017) – is a sound installation where Oshiro explores the concept of translation between media. Communicating frequency from technological apparatus such as cathode ray television and connecting it to a speaker to make the visual signal hearable. One of the previous experiments towards Mono-poly was Strings (2014) where Oshiro connects strings to a big sub-woofer and plays low frequency tones to make the string vibrate. The result of this is a mesmerising piece where the strings smoothly sync with the tone, creating a very hypnotic movement loop. Mono-poly consist of only two strings that are resonated by sub-woofer tone. What makes this latest exhibition special is that it uses 400W LED lights to modulate the vibration of the string. The light is programmed by Arduino to change its brightness and frequency, making the string fluctuate differently through out the installation.
Every instrument or device created by Oshiro eventually find its way to be used in a live performance. By combining his creations and improvising with them, Oshiro explores their sonic capabilities and creates narrative with them. From extremely complex rhythms created with the Kachi Kachi, to low powerful drones inspired from his installation work. His technical knowledge over his instrument grant him a mastery of control over them. Knowing to detail their sonic boundaries and capabilities, creating explosive composition overloaded with technicality. Some of Oshiro’s objectives in his improvisations are: Wide Dynamics, Inactive Reaction (trying to avoid the reaction with other performers) and Proficiency.
Fari Bradley and Hannah Kemp-Walsh are students and members of the CRiSAP research faculty, dedicated in sound studies and sound arts. Bradley’s currently studies the relationship of of drawing or sketching with sound and performance. Creating a set of performances that where sketched by an associate artist, with the purpose of visually mapping the sonic elements of the performances and outlook another perspective of the performance. Her inclusion of drawing and sketches in the performances led her to also experiment with visuals scores, including them in her most recent work. Bradley’s work is influenced through her background in classical musical notation, but as contemporary sound researchers and practitioners, she intends to drive her sketches and visual score far from the norms of classical notation.Her work has led her to perform and exhibit in academic institutions in the middle east and south east Asia. As she spent long periods of time in those countries, she found great inspiration in the physical structures she found her self in. Drawing sketches inspired in markets and architecture of Karachi, and then finding a way to translate it to sound.
In 2014 she created a piece/sound exhibition called ‘Variations for Rooms and Tone’ presented in Karachi, where she combined static drones with vocalist mirroring the frequencies in a room of a gallery. The performers where allowed to move through the room, creating different relationships between the tones and the drone, affected directly by the acoustic of the room. The visual aspect of the piece was of great importance to the composition, the audience in the gallery had to be static opposite from the performers but they had a clear sight of the movement of the performers. Bradley was interested in finding out if the fact that the audience could see the movement of the performers, affected the outcome or expression of the exhibition.
As visual media and literature are important factors in Bradley’s pieces, she has included phrases and quotes in the background of the exhibition. The words in the back helped the audience to connect tones with images and communicate desired messages. This messages mostly communicated feminist and social justice ideals. A recurring phrase in her work was ‘Women take back the noise’, a quite minimalistic and abstract quote that manages to stick with the audience, forcing them to seek their own interpretation.
Hannah Kemp-Walsh the other half of the visiting practitioner lecture, works with mediums such as radio and its relationship with listening techniques. Her PHD is practice based meaning that her work involves activity and events instead of the more scholar job of writing and archiving. With collectives such as Shortwave and Soundcamp, she has created festivals and workshops where she teaches listening and sound technology. These workshops have a lense in promoting feminist activity within this practices, trying to diversify this fields that are male dominated. One of her most recurring workshops is teaching people how to build DIY radios, and then with the tool find ways to create sonic art.
Her experience with workshops and collectives led her to create ‘The Right to Record’ a project dedicated to help marginated communities regarding physical disabilities, to find social justice through sound practice. The project focused in different legal processes that disabled people have to face to get government aid. This processes are full of corruption, finding multiple ways to avoid helping this communities in need. When individuals tried to apply for this grants, they where forced to conduct written interviews and test to categorise their level of disability. These interviews where corrupted by officials, writing false information on the official applications, preventing people to get the aid they need. ‘The Right to Record’ movement as its name suggest was allowing people to record these interviews to prevent corruption from happening, using sound as hard evidence. The project consisted of multiple zines and sound works that where directly projected to the corrupt organisations, this pieces had declarations from the victims of the corruption and their impact from it, mirror by sound and music to highlight the emotional expression.
I found Kemp-Walsh approach for social justice quite inspiring. This is the first time I come across a sound practitioner using mediums such as zines too manifest a project and a social change. The structure of the project and the layout of the scene create a very strong arguments towards demonstrating government failure. Sound in this case is used to mirror the information of the zine, giving it a more emotive force. Even-though of this, the art aspect of the project does not dilute the truth and evidence of the situation. Making the project both aesthetically heavy and argumentatively accurate.
