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Brandon La Belle, Background Noise, Public Supply: Buildings, Constructions, and Locational Listening.

Brandon La Belle, Background Noise, Public Supply: Buildings, Constructions, and Locational Listening. pp 149-181

The term sound installation was never introduced to me until I read Brandon La Belle’s chapter. From my understanding, sound installation was coined by the American artist Max Neuhaus who creates artwork that engages the public at large, through installations if systems of sound production (167). Neuhaus also turns environments into instruments of performance and audition also known to be an audible commentary on how public space is conceived (160). For example, his work Drive-in Music, in 1967, relyed not only on 7 radio transmitters but also on an audience. Also, his Sirens project in 1978 showcases the interaction between sound, space, and psychological well being. Neuhaus want the sirens to let out sounds that more informative and less stressful. This way, sound installation introduces an acoustical conversation through the integration of both space and sound. While reading this chapter as well as Michael Newman’s Experimental music: Cage and Beyond, I found out how sound installation came to be. Sound installation arose from a fundamental historical moment such as Fluxus and Minimalism. Sound installation like Fluxus, redefines what is considered normal, releases creative energy, and reworks the notion of everyday human culture by repurposing them into art. 

The book also brought to the fore the importance and difference of listening versus hearing. According to La Belle, hearing is a physiological condition while listening is a psychological act (158). Listening also “expands outwards and draws inward by attentively incorporating surrounding environments and their audibility into the folds of consciousness��� (158). This reminded me of the reading An Introduction to Acoustic Ecology by Kendall Wrightson on the psychological significance of sound and how it’s utilized as a controlling force such as “an (offensive) weapon or as a (defensive) barrier against the soundscape” (12). Therefore, listening is an integral part to open up a conversational space but it also as La Belle stated listing sparks understanding and weaves self and surrounding into sympathy (158). The significance of listening and sympathy reminded me of Deborah Chapman’s reading Slow Activism, which describes listening as a method of “slow ethnography” because it not only uncovers something deeper that the naked eye can not see but also changes the perspective of the insider. Additionally, for Bernhard Leitner, listening is understood to extend all parts of the body, and sound to touch a deep nerve (173). Therefore, sound installations are important to showcase how space can be an instrument but only if we listen inclusively. 

[maithaalqemzi-nyuad]

Brandon La Belle, Background Noise, Public Supply: Buildings, Constructions, and Locational Listening.

Brandon La Belle, Background Noise, Public Supply: Buildings, Constructions, and Locational Listening. pp 149-181

The term sound installation was never introduced to me until I read Brandon La Belle’s chapter. From my understanding, sound installation was coined by the American artist Max Neuhaus who creates artwork that engages the public at large, through installations if systems of sound production (167). Neuhaus also turns environments into instruments of performance and audition also known to be an audible commentary on how public space is conceived (160). For example, his work Drive-in Music, in 1967, relyed not only on 7 radio transmitters but also on an audience. Also, his Sirens project in 1978 showcases the interaction between sound, space, and psychological well being. Neuhaus want the sirens to let out sounds that more informative and less stressful. This way, sound installation introduces an acoustical conversation through the integration of both space and sound. While reading this chapter as well as Michael Newman’s Experimental music: Cage and Beyond, I found out how sound installation came to be. Sound installation arose from a fundamental historical moment such as Fluxus and Minimalism. Sound installation like Fluxus, redefines what is considered normal, releases creative energy, and reworks the notion of everyday human culture by repurposing them into art. 

The book also brought to the fore the importance and difference of listening versus hearing. According to La Belle, hearing is a physiological condition while listening is a psychological act (158). Listening also “expands outwards and draws inward by attentively incorporating surrounding environments and their audibility into the folds of consciousness” (158). This reminded me of the reading An Introduction to Acoustic Ecology by Kendall Wrightson on the psychological significance of sound and how it’s utilized as a controlling force such as “an (offensive) weapon or as a (defensive) barrier against the soundscape” (12). Therefore, listening is an integral part to open up a conversational space but it also as La Belle stated listing sparks understanding and weaves self and surrounding into sympathy (158). The significance of listening and sympathy reminded me of Deborah Chapman’s reading Slow Activism, which describes listening as a method of “slow ethnography” because it not only uncovers something deeper that the naked eye can not see but also changes the perspective of the insider. Additionally, for Bernhard Leitner, listening is understood to extend all parts of the body, and sound to touch a deep nerve (173). Therefore, sound installations are important to showcase how space can be an instrument but only if we listen inclusively. 

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Fluxus Movement

Fluxus is considered one of the roots of modern art. It expands the conventional ways and processes of how music or sound is made. Also, it questions and re-emphasizes what is considered ‘normal’ sounds and music by releasing creativity and uniqueness. What I found interesting is that In the 1950s, John Cage showcased that the Fluxus movement was, in fact, an important historical movement in modern art by teaching the entire Fluxus movement in his legendary music class at the New School for Social Research. Cage proposed that life collapse with art together inspiring the artists to take it to ridiculous lengths. 

I think the Fluxus movement engendered a reinterpretation of civilized human culture by turning into art. What makes this movement unique is that it has no restrictions or ends to creativity and it continues to aspire many generations moving to the digital age. For example, the artworks I found the most interesting from the fluxes movement are Joe Jones Solar Orchestra who puts solar panels into toys and they would run forever showcasing beautiful rhythmic and mechanical pieces, Alison Knowles Paper Plane was written using fragments of onion skin as musical notation. By observing the process of these artworks and the majority of works produced in the Fluxus movement, they repurpose everyday culture into art. Another example is Yoko Ono flushing toilets 

An aspect I was astonished by from the Fluxus movement is that it’s not very serious because it made very little impact on the larger artwork in the later years and that it was considered as a joke which is fine because they wanted to bring humor into art. This can be seen in John cage’s performance of Water Walk-in which the viewers were laughing at his performance which some may consider everyday activities. I also witnessed this in Yoko Ono’s work such as in singing or her work toilet. Ono still gets criticism about her avant-grade artworks and is still underrepresented not only because she is a woman but also because this kind of artwork is still not considered “normal”. While reading the article Women & Fluxus: Toward a feminist archive of Fluxus by Midori Yoshimoto, I was not surprised that women during the Fluxus movement were underrepresented despite women’s prominence during the movement because Women today are still underrepresented in many fields of the art. Even though Fluxus artists showcased diversity and creativity in music and sounds, it did not showcase diversity in terms of representing women.

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Laetitia Sonami

Laetitia Sonami born in France in 1957 and now based on Oakland California, is a composer, performer, and sound artist. She is mostly known for her signature work “the Lady’s Glove” first created in 1991 in which she attaches a glove with multiple sensors. This glove helps track intricate movements of each finger to control sounds, mechanical devices, and lights in real-time. It was used for a performance with Paul DeMarinis for Ars Electronica. So far she has developed five updated versions and each work is getting more intricate. Many of her performances also include texts and narratives by Melody Sumner Carnahan as a way to transform text into physical motions. Sonami mentioned that at first the lady’s glove was considered a joke or a “social commentary” on technology because of the public’s interest in using the Mattel Power glove (for the Nintendo Entertainment System). Sonami considered it as “very Macho” therefore she considered her glove to be more “sexy and feminine” which relates to her French origins. As she worked on the glove more, she realized it then became an instrument that made her question “at which point does a controller become an instrument?” Her answer was “it becomes an instrument when the software starts reflecting and adapting the limitations and possibilities of the controller, and your musical thinking and ideas become more symbiosis between controller, the software and the hardware” (229). When she was in France, she tried to go to the GRM (Groupe de Recherche Musicle) but she discovered that she couldn't do her work in France because it had a rigid system that follows a particular school of musical thought. She first started building her instruments when she attended Mills College in the year 1978. In Mills college, she was surprised how fluid the system was and being able to build her own tools as it did not fit the European standards. To her, the instruments influence what she envisions and sound is embodied through one’s gestures. Sonami also saw performance as an important mechanism to display her work especially in displaying the Lady’s glove. She stated that it’s not particularly about the embedment of a performative action with electronics but with concentration, the focus the performer radiates, and the intimacy the performer presents. Sonami was always amazed about what technology can do because to her it’s a projection of our dreams, illusions, desires, and how we see the world and to “reduce it to very crude systems is somewhat disrespectful of our imagination!” (231). Sonami also desires to play with the subtlety of sound and technology instead of reducing it because she considers it to be more feminine. To her, she sees that men have done interesting structure and system-based work, but is sonically poor and that women can be more interested in subtleties of sounds than men are. Also, her performances are rarely improvisational because it’s hard to improvise with the software she writes. In most of her solo performances, the sounds are chosen and as she defined it as “surgical” as she does not want it to be too random or free. She resolved this by using templates that create a set of possibilities. Sonmai worked with a lot of different sounds as an opportunity to explore her interests. She used to listen a lot to natural sounds such as the environment to figure out how sounds came together and how to dissociate them. Her attractions to sound often change depending on the texture and color one is attracted to but also what a person is going through. What mostly attracted her to sounds is their impermanence and fleeting quality which is one of the reasons why she stays away from the idea of recording. To her, sounds that are repeating themselves and the notion of fixing sounds demolishes the beauty of sound belonging to a situation or time. What I personally find interesting in Sonami’s work is how she uses innovative ways to listen and consider sounds and music. She strays away from mainstream notions of music and sound and turns to natural and unique sounds. Her work in a way showcases what might music or sound looks like and sounds like in the future. In the modern world most of us own technologies yet we don’t consider them as art or instruments therefore I think her work reemphasizes the beauty of looking into everyday objects and turning it into music. She also developed a unique interpretation of what might our bodies sound like more specifically the internal sounds that we often don’t listen too. 

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