Year 1 – Tom Blog

Quantum Listening

Notes on “Quantum Listening”; a recently published book containing a speech by Pauline Oliveros from 1999.

I could recite the whole text as a list of important quotes. I feel Deep Resonance with Oliveros’ philosophy.

Quantum listening is about listening in multiple ways, as many ways, to existence, being, surrounding, soundscape. To Oliveros, the multiplicity of listening is essential. Listening is not the ear as an objective reciever getting closer to an external reality. It is an observation of the cascading reactions to the external, internal and imagined sounds of being. Through observation the sounds themselves change. Like in quantum physics, Oliveros claims that observation changes reality.

“Quantum Listening is listening in as many ways as possible simultaneously – changing and being changed by the listening.”

“One focuses on a point and changes that point by listening.”

Pauline is fascinated by the potentials of new technologies. To her, new biotech such as ingested nanotechnology could assist in our hearing abilities. “What would you want to hear if you had a bionic ear that could let you listen to anything, anywhere, any time?” She is imagining a technology that gives us live access to microsopic sounds, like the sound of a cell dividing in our body, or macroscopic sounds, like the gasses in deep space. Someone deeply imbedded in the somatic practices of Qi Gong and Tai Chi, and the awareness practices in Buddhist cultures, who carried out most of her retreats in natural environments, is excited about the hybridization of human and machine. What would Oliveros say today?

TikTok is like our bionic ear. We have access to the larger world in rapid time. A global culture connected through sound and moving image. Here is a lovely quote from Adam Greenfield: ““In our time, even the most seemingly transgressive visions of technology in everyday life invariably fall back to the familiar furniture of capital investment, surplus extraction and exploitation. We don’t even speak of progress any longer, but rather of ‘innovation.’”

Is Pauline excited or rather, aware of the inevitable. “Soon we will be faced with an unprecedented, exponential acceleration in technology.” And here we are. My deep admiration for Oliveros is her fascination with the new worlds and the future, as someone who embodies ancestral knowledge. It takes courage to carry both. It takes wisdom to understand nuance and complexity. For her we must recognize the implications and potentialities of new technologies. The human-machine epoch has already begun.

I am imagining how to implement the digital into my compositional work. How does the digital dimension overlay our perception? My recent compositional work and that for my final project discusses perception, and music as perception. I wonder how music can respresent states of being and also attract one to the materiality around them. The entity that calling out to us is also within. This is a reaction to the common function of popular music today, as a seperation from the world. What is the world, if it does not include the audio from our earbuds? More accurate language is necessary.

This project I am currently involved in, of music as perception, melodies above field recordings, music that exists within a space, outdoor music: what ideologies are present in these respresentations? Perhaps it began as a purism, of the’natural’ world as something to return to. Throughout the course and after reading Seth Kim Cohen’s book, ‘In The Blink of an Ear’, I imagine this purism as an essentialism. A nostalgia for better times, that we never experienced. Today, new technologies are imbedded in our perception. How can these be incorporated into the composition. In my new composition, I represent the digital (or the elsewhere-ness of the digital) as a sine wave, slightly irritated and distorted, but able to navigate with the environment. For now. It doesn’t consume the heart melody.

Performance

The next assignment went over my head as I have been busy in other activities. I often have the feeling that I am not studying enough while also learning much outside of the coursework. I want to allocate more time for study and research to gain more from the course.

I thought I would discuss some other elements of my practice. Recently I have been performing regularly and have had some interesting realisations around my work. I play live electronic music, often in dance settings, with music that could be described as euphoric, wholesome and hyperfolk-ish. Other buzzy words are oaty jigs, celtic hardcore and cute music. I’ve felt by describing my music in terms that stand out and perplex people is effective in giving homage to my unique sound and vision. It also makes people curious and wanting to come to an event. Until recently I would give more open terms like electronic or ambient, which do not tend to excite people. Being humble is attractive but is it a powerful agent of our times? I like more the idea of creating excitement and positivity around the work. I would even claim that fake humility is prevelant in some electronic music genres that are male dominated. So my agenda is to do homage to my work by imagining that others could benefit from listening. There is clearly ego here, bubbling away, as I run around meeting people, but I believe that is neccessary for carving out the space and platform that I want for my music. It is a tender juggling process to not get consumed in an individualist mindset.

Buzzy buzzy. After performing I have feelings of emptyness and sadness. I wonder what really happened, did I say what I wanted to say?

The pace is so fast that I have little time to prepare a set. I only use a launchpad and my laptop so there is a reduced space for expression. I realised I want to step back from performing and implement more tools of expression to make the performance more live. Also, after a recent set the sound was so distorted, and my vision was not shared with the audience. I have a lot of work to do in sound design and mixing to handle bigger sound systems.

A few days ago I played in Iklectik in the garden space. I really ejoyed playing outside.

Now with some friends we are planning outdoor events. With a portable stereo system and radio system, we have a center output of sound with different outputs dotted around, from radios and bluetooth speakers with recievers. All will be connected to a pirate radio frequency. We will set up in public spaces, with a battery since the set up is small, and invite performers and DJs to play. In our utopian vision, members of the public will dance together outside in an unexpected sound and movement experience. Performers will have an opportunity to express themselves without the restrictions of club spaces. Little money will be needed to set this up. I am thinking of the tem sonic flocking. Body body body! Sound arts needs to prioritize embodiement to harness the healing nature of sound and movement experience.

To continue the revolution folx will dismantle their phones into garden robotics to assist the new food growing communites.

My most recent performance:

Natural Soundscapes

I’m reading The Soundscape by R. Murray Schafer.

A soundscape is a combination of sounds that lead to the immersive sonic environment. A soundscape is the accumulation of sounds that exist in space. The sonic features of an area of land. Or ‘the acoustic environment as percieved by humans, in context.’ (Wiki)

The relatively new term soundscape was popularised by R. Murray Schafer in 1977. It rolls off my tongue. The term has been criticized first for it’s vagueness and also it’s relation to the historical description of ‘landscape’: as an object percieved externally (where subject is detatched from object). Schafer wanted to protect the object of ‘soundscape’ from the excess noise of modern life/industrial civilization/mechanical noise. He describes the object as a dexterous fusion of natural sounds and human sounds, or biosphere and technosphere (Oliveros), which comes out of balance as civilization expands. The word ‘natural’ is prevelant in his writings.

It’s fascinating to read a book on the affect of new technologies, that was written in 1977. This era is pre-digital and pre-internet. Some criticisms that Schafer makes seem so imbedded into our lifestyle today that to be without them would require an impossible shift of human activity. Or, more accurately, to imagine their absence seems impossible. What is possible to imagine is that placing value on the high-fidelity of the acoustic world would be irrelevant to future urban populations. They may be reliant on noise-cancellation for navigation and communicative purposes. Schafer’s utopia of a human society politely and quietly blending with larger non-human ecosystems seems further away.

What is Schafer’s utopia? In claiming some noise as noise-pollution, does Schafer construct categories of natural and unnatural? Through the lens of critical theory we can begin to question his positionality and ability to claim a common utopia.

The book is heavily reliant on literature and the arts for the human experiences of the soundscape before the 20th century, which is a narrow representation of experience. The book contains uncomfortable quotes from old intellectuals like Tobias Smollett: “…I go to bed after midnight, jaded and restless from the dissipating of the day-I start every hour from my sleep, at the horrid noise of the watchmen bawling the hour through every street, and thundering at every door; a set of useless fellows, who serve no other purpose but that of disturbing the repose of the inhabitants.”

A painting is printed in the book, depicting an upper-class musician wearing full victorian attire, glaring with rage outside of his window at the hoard of children, women and beggars who seem to be making a racket. Schafer doesn’t comment. Unfortunately Schafer’s vision of a more peaceful world has reflections of countryside bourgeouisie aesthetics that were only possible due to surplus leisure time and luxuries. This bed of material wealth cannot exist in a more equal society.

I don’t disagree with Schafer’s urgency around noise-pollution. It is hard to untangle it from the classism of his sources, when class struggle is rarely mentioned in the book. Schafer does not ignore social issues but their exploration is premature. He is too quick to define what is natural.

Oblique Strategies

Spontanaeity as a way to inspire new creative practice. A set of cards that guide the experiencer to think and act that may lead to new creative practices.

“The Oblique Strategies constitute a set of over 100 cards, each of which is a suggestion of a course of action or thinking to assist in creative situations. These famous cards have been used by many artists and creative people all over the world since their initial publication.” By Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt.

The famous cards cost £50. My access to these cards is limited by my financial situation, even though they aim to support creative practice. Brian Eno’s net worth is estimated to 60 million (therichest.com). Who’s creative practice is being supported? And do the cards support creative practice or do they appear to support creative practice? They appear cool. Being cool gets in the way, stop!!!

As materials these cards are cheap to make. Perhaps as an art piece they become more valuable than their material cost. Does Eno have freedom to decide the price of the products enscribed with his name? He is possibly restriced; net worth doesn’t equate to control.

OATCORE

Oats as the vessel for change. Oats + core imagines what oats can give to the memetic complex of internet and rave cultures. Oats are wholesome. People are ashamed of the wholesome. They rightly criticize it. But are they also afraid of bodily functions?

Currently I am finding MIDI of old Irish melodies, and producing them above industrial bass, with deconstructed reggaeton and club rhythms.

Acoustic Approaches To Ecology

Notes on a lecture from David Toop and Lawrence English on acoustic approaches to ecology.

Toop and English discuss technology as a fascillitator for measuring and understanding the world. Certain technology can “expand the bandwidth we are in contact with.” We can tune in to frequencies that are previously inaudible as a way to reveal something about the world. These tools are tools for navigation on a micro or macro-perspecitve. As an approch to ecology, Toop and English beleive that by revealing previously inaudible information we can change the way people relate to the world.

Our capacities for field recording and acoustic ecology is shaped by the technologies we have available. During the discussion, capacity is discussed in regards to listening. When the capacity has widened, we tend to listen to the flaws of previous work. The flaw becomes more audible as the capacity has changed. For example, many old recorders had to cut out low frequencies due to machine noise. Only certain voices succeeded in hitting the right notes to be audible through the machine. The capacities of technology affect the personality of the media. Toop says that “with every stage of technology we become adjusted to the new normal. It becomes neutral. Then 10-15 years later we see it’s personality.” It is interesting to examine how these personalities are fetishized are marketed by the fashion and music industries. Contemporary artists seem more forward focused.

English discusses his field recording practices. Field recording can be a technical craft, but also artistic. English admires the personal touch that is audible in the recorded. These are imperfections that are audible to the listener, that perhaps create intimacy. “Field recording is about sharing a moment… the listener’s listening… coming to the world through someone else’s ears. “

In field recording we become concious of those events often missed. Technology can expand our experience of the world. Recording is to take a space with you. It can examine our potential of what it means to be human.

There was no time for me to ask my question: How do you feel about the sourcing of materials for field recording equipment and can that contradict the ambitions of acoustic ecology?

Toop and English are passionate about the non-human lifeworlds we interact with. Much of their work could be reduced to ‘climate activism’, but it is more complex that that. I appreciate their ethics and I am curious about how they approach these contradictions of acoustic ecology and the sourcing of materials for field recording. Technology can help us; technology can hinder and destroy us. Perhaps by remembering it as a tool we can use technologies without getting lost in their seduction.

Kamaru

“There is a need for a more activated way of listening to our environment, which can lead to greater awareness of what’s around us. Artists can help with this. Works that help us to experience sound deeply, making us aware of our ears and bodies which listen all the time, are more necessary than ever.” Kamaru.

Joesph Kamaru is a Berlin based sound artist. He is an active field recordist and discusses noise and listening through his work. He is interested in stimulating awareness of the environment through creative composition.

“Within the complex sound specter of our environments and surroundings, sounds are always immersive, proximal, and constantly pushing through our bodies. There is a temporal flux with the sounds of our habitus and daily lives, which most often goes unnoticed and ignored.” Kamaru

His work tends to be surrounded by intellectual narratives. The sound is a medium to carry ideas. For example, he uses subtle variations over time in synthesizers to explore duration, time warp and accelerration. The slower movement of this music can be read as a critique of the hyper-accelerated states of our time. How do we live today, and how can we contrast that pace using sound and music? There is the intellectual narrative of the sound as text, but the complexity of feeling and being is beyond the compartmentalization of language. I feel a sense of peace and clarity as I listen. It is a new intricate peace, rested in the beauty we reach through discomfort. A contemporary peace that remains critical and present, and can never be a full peace. It is an evolution of the new age peace that failed to be critical.

Kamaru has to explain his work to the world with a formula of text to access people, institutions and ways of earning a living. He commented he never directed his music. He would sit in his studio and create, to then analyse after. As my process of composition is quite similiar, I wonder are we objective as creators to translate our music into text? Perhaps it is always an estimation. Perhaps the quality of the music is not ours to claim. I have noticed, when I add exciting words to my work people seem more interested and engaged.

Borderlands

Recently I’m imagining the cultural exchanges of ancient music. How, by studying them, can we grow solidarity between fabricated borders? How do we respect the identities of national populations and their cultures, while exploring it’s place in a wider sea of exchange?

How can we hold onto the past and our ancient knowledge, without perpetuating their systems of oppression?

I’m imagining a folk revial through industrial sound. Can we find imagine a folk music before feudalism, before our tongues were tied and imaginations dimmed?

Perhaps the answer is fantasy, to an imagined past , for construcive futures. I aim to plant the aesthetics of oats into hardcore queer musics.

The Agency To Heal

The key to access the psychotropic forms of being is to reduce that noise we have agency over. By reducing noise, the desaturated environment starts to brighten and we become fascinated by a colourful sentient reality. I’ve found that reducing listening time to recorded music is a way to amplify the music of everyday soundscapes.

We live in a sea. We are soaked in media and images, overlapping symbols and language. We are distracted and cannot focus. Lots of people remain in the sea. Music is often here, an anaesthetic to calm oneself and take oneself inside when the world is a scary place. Living in London requires a gentle anaesthetic to cope with the stimuli. I cannot embrace my fellow neighbours as we march through the tunnels underneath. The city goes deep and blocks the sky with it’s pollution.

How do we reduce noise? Is some noise harmful in it’s materiality? Or is it in the way we approach noise that we harm ourselves? Stoics would say we have free will in how we relate to the world. Perhaps if you bury yourself somewhere deep in the intellect. Some frequencies of sound make the body stressed. Some sounds are too loud. Reducing external noise requires massive changes in the way we live and organise.

The inner world reflects the outer world. The binary of inner/outer is only useful for certain theory and communication. Inner noise often comes from those bodies in pain. Bodies distract themselves from traumas too painful to sit with. We think in words about other places. Is everyone in pain? It seems like pain is unfairly distributed across our species. Some demographics of people experience more harm and danger in the world than others. Some carry more trauma that has been passed over generations. How do we claim presence as a solution, when it’s access is inequal?

Healing occurs in safe spaces. Everyone deserves to heal. Everybody needs someone and deserves protection. Sometimes the safety occurs in a gated community, or absorbed in virtual symbols and images.

I believe healing also occurs outside, and in the reduction of noise we have agency over we begin to learn to be present and comfortable with the environment. The colours begin to lift and in their brightness they heal too. They pull the fascinated body further along a path of recovery.

How do we participate in the collective path of healing? I try to take responsibility of my own pain and to stay present with the world. I reduce those behaviours that numb me when I am able to. Then give attention outwards, and try to accept and support whatever position a friend might be at. To access beauty we must go through pain.

Ugly healing world.

The Right To Record

I am interested in Hannah Kemp-Welch’s project “The Right To Record.”

When applying for the disability benefit ‘PIP’ (personal independence payment), disabled people and those with long term health conditions are forced to go to a private company for assessment and validation of their own disability. They are forced to perform their disability in the presence of an assessor. A disability news network reported that that the assessors ‘lied, ignored written evidence and dishonestly reported the results of physical examinations’.

It is presumed that the assessors want to limit the access to PIP. Is this a prescription from higher forces; a government who performs social welfare for aesthetic purposes, but does not actually care about the wellbeing of citizens? And ideology. Within our systems there exists the stigma on disabled people who are deemed as a burden. It is a common inversion of responsibility; if anyone cares to witness a disabled person and their struggle, they might learn that the disability often arises from external limitations; a society, architecture and bureaucracy constructed for “able”-bodied, “legal” citizens.

My mother has MS and now mostly uses a mobility scooter to navigate Tramore, the small town in Ireland where she lives. The scooter has small wheels and it struggles to cross the many potholes and degraded sidewalks. When she first had the scooter, I was able to finally see the apathy and ableism present in the streets I had walked on for years previously. Her struggle is silent unless she can speak. Disabled people must be listened to.

Hannah started this project to give a voice to those silenced people. This is artist as community worker. How does one facilitate, and work with a community they are also estranged from by education, language and aesthetics? Hannah discusses the tensions of aesthetics between a white educated arts student and a working class community. She said that the art was not the final product, a 30 minute audio file, but instead it was the connection with the group.

Community work is a fascinating alternative to individual art projects; ethically they seem juxtapositioned. One can do both.