In my sound work, I have combined the topic of my dissertation, which is the relationship between nature and sound.
My sound work can be divided into four parts, the first part is when nature was not yet destroyed, and the second part is when nature was destroyed due to the outbreak of war, industry, and technology with the advent of the industrial age. The third part is when mankind is involved in cutting down or destroying the natural environment. The fourth part is when mankind has done this damage and nature has taken its revenge so that environmental and natural measures are taken.
In the first part, I used some harmonious synthesizer sounds, representing the most pristine untouched sounds of the natural world. In the second and third sections, I added some sound effects, such as the sound of some bombs and artillery. This represents the world going to war as the human industry grows more and more ambitious. In addition to some of the perceived sounds, I also recorded some thunder, which can represent the beginning of climate change in the natural world, representing the occurrence of some natural disasters. In the last part, the music turns back into harmonious synthesizer sounds. This represents mankind starting to value the harmony in nature and to make up for the mistakes they have made, by using technology to develop products that are better for the environment rather than mass warfare. And it is partly a vision of a better future for mankind.
Cathy Lane is an artist, composer and academic. She works primarily in sound, combining oral history, archival recordings, spoken word and environmental recordings to investigate histories, environments, our collective and individual memories and the forces that shape them. She is inspired by places or themes which are rooted in every day experience and particularly interested in ‘hidden histories and historical amnesia and how this can be investigated from a feminist perspective through the medium of composed sound.
I listened to her work Hidden lives, in which I could hear a lot of voice repetition around the left and right channels. This left me with a feeling of overwhelm and a gradual reduction of the lower frequencies of the sound. In the synopsis, Cathy Lane’s inspiration for this piece was the repetition of domestic tasks performed by women around the house, and I think the repetitive musical sounds may have come from the command of the male gaze. In different times women have been the ones who have taken on this invisible work in the home. They are confined to the house and don’t spend too much time outside or away from this confined life.
After listening to this piece, I was very moved by it. Because in our family too it is my mother who does the various chores, and we some times take for granted that we will leave this matter of housework to the women in the family. We men sometimes don’t even do the housework, or even complain about the women in the family because of some work pressure or other pressures, which is also a sign of male gazing. I think we should reflect on this.
AUDREY CHEN is a 2nd generation Chinese/Taiwanese-American musician who was born into a family of material scientists, doctors and engineers, outside of Chicago in 1976. Parting ways with the family convention, she turned to the cello at age 8 and voice at 11. After years of classical and conservatory training in both instruments, with a resulting specialization in early and new music, she parted ways again in 2003 to begin new negotiations with sound in order to discover a more individually honest aesthetic.
I listened to the piece In The on Audrey’s album and I was amazed at how much she could transform her voice and do so without post-production.The interplay of vocals and cello in Chen’s piece creates a powerful sonic impact. She pushes the vocals to their limits, from a low growl to a whisper-like whisper that becomes part of her work. At the same time, her approach to the cello is unique, utilising a variety of unconventional techniques to explore new sonic expressions from this familiar instrument.
After listening to “In the,” I had the feeling that I had entered an unknown forest, where every sound was like a creature of the forest, some low, some murmuring, some silent, some wild. I was lost in this forest of sound and found a new self in it.
I went to Thin air, a new media art exhibition in London this weekend, which featured an excellent combination of light and sound and showcased the work of contemporary artists from around the world. The exhibition is a large-scale immersive exhibition that makes the element of light infinite.
The works that surprised me the most were those by the artists Kimchi and chips and Dutch artist Rosa Menkman, who used a combination of video projections, mirrors, and speakers to produce moving cross-beams of light and reflections to reveal volumetric light, the forms of which are materialised in the form of haze on the work.
After seeing the exhibition, I searched for other works by Kimchi and chips. On their website, I saw the work Halo, a bespoke installation in front of Somerset House in London, transforming sunlight into a visible and invisible form. The work consists of over 100 motorized mirrors arranged in a 15-metre track that changes direction as the sun moves, concentrating the sun’s rays in one place and using water mist as a medium to draw a large halo in mid-air. The artist created a mathematical model and developed a virtual simulation for each mirror. In order to achieve a clear halo of light, each mirror was set with a set of parameters to ensure its unique position, steering, axis offset, and polynomial correction parameters. Technology is used to create the infinite possibilities of art.
After listening to Annea Lockwood’s ‘Piano Transplants’, I was deeply impressed by her unique approach and the concepts she presented.
First and foremost, Piano Transplants is a challenge and a critique of traditional musical concepts, with Lockwood’s use of discarded pianos as the main object of the work, burning and drowning in extreme ways, shattering my perception of the piano as an instrument. This is no longer the kind of musical composition that we know as an expression of emotion and skill through an instrument but more of a revolution against musical tradition.
The sound of the burning piano, the blistering sound of the submerged piano, and even the visual impact of the acts themselves all become part of this musical work. This makes ‘Piano Transplants’ transcend the boundaries of music and become a multifaceted expression of sound art, visual art, and performance art.
The combination of sound art with visual art can also be seen in Susan Philipsz’s visual art Turner Prize for her work ‘Lowland,’ a Scottish ballad (a lament about a drowning sailor saying goodbye to his lover in his dreams) that she hummed and played on a loudspeaker under the ‘suicide mecca’ under the George V Bridge in Glasgow. The artist’s intention is to transform this bleak public space with a private voice, encouraging the listener to reconsider the meaning of life. The bridge is here like a passage between life and death, a river that you cross to enter the world of the dead. The echoes coming from the bottom of the river are also like a chorus of the deceased. This sound art can also be called visual art.
I went to see Mike Nelson’s exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London, his immersive show where he collects materials and objects from recycling depots, car factories, charity shops, and other places, transforming and reconstructing them. Referencing science fiction, failed political movements, dark history, and counter-culture, he touches on alternative ways of living and thinking: lost belief systems disrupted histories and cultures.
negative comment; rather, I feel uncertain when I step into each of the galleries and feel uneasy. This may have been due to my fear of being in a dimension of time that is unfamiliar to us.
One of my more impressive works is The Deliverance and The Patience. It is a vast interior space that is divided into many different rooms with different scenes, all of which are rather neglected and can be seen as traces of time.
I was most excited about a sand-filled space called The Bluff Canyon. First exhibited in Oxford in 2004, this work can be seen as a tribute to Robert Smithson’s Partially Buried Woodshed. When I first saw the installation, I thought of a film: Dune. There is a scene in it where modern concrete and desert come together.
In this lesson, we discussed Cybernetic, a groundbreaking computer art exhibition held in London from 2 August to 20 October 1968, which was a concentrated presentation of so-called ‘cybernetic art.’ After the class, I got to know more about Cybernetic Serendipity.
The Cybernetic Serendipity exhibition is divided into three sections:
Computer-generated graphics, computer-animated films, computer-created and played music, and computer-based poetry and text creation.
Control facilities for artwork creation, environmental control, remote-controlled robots, and drawing machines.
Demonstrations of computer applications and a working platform reflecting the history of cybernetics.
Gordon Pask was one of the first cyberneticists, psychologists, and educators. His research includes biocomputing, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, logic, linguistics, psychology, and artificial life. He expanded the field of cybernetics research to contain the flow of information in various media, and Gordon Pask exhibited one of his response devices, Colloquy of Mobiles, at the Accidental Discovery of Cybernetics. Mobiles.)
One of the more fascinating features of the exhibition was the Sound Activated Mobile (SAM) by sculptor Edward Ihnatowicz. When the viewer makes a sound to it, the flower turns to face the source of the sound.
Hungarian-born French artist Nicolas Schöffer is considered the founder of cybernetic art, and his most famous work, CYSP 1, was on display at the exhibition. The name was CYSP means Cybernetic Spatiodynamic, taking the first two letters of both words. CYSP 1 was the first ever cybernetic art sculpture created in 1956. It is equipped with mechanical and electronic controls, with small electric motors driving the various components. Crucially, it contains photo- and sound-sensing devices so that when the environment changes, the sculpture changes accordingly.
The now familiar computer graphics also had a place in the ‘accidental discovery of cybernetics’, with works and theories that focused on each but replaced the draughtsman with a machine.
Ivan Moscovich’s pendulum-harmonograph is a semi-automatic plotting machine. The pendulum length is adjustable, giving it a variable factor.
Ivan Moscovich’s plotter did not involve a computer; it was just machinery. And it was the invention of Desmond Paul Henry, the first British computer graphics artist, who belonged to the cybernetic arts and presented his drawing computer in a special exhibition edition.
By 1968, pioneering musicians were already fruitful in their experiments with electronic music, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis, and others being at the forefront, with noise and effects entering modern music through various methods, including digital means, which had a place in the ICA’s ‘Accidental Discovery of Cybernetics They have a place in the ICA’s “Unexpected Discoveries in Cybernetics”. Their uniqueness and diversity are to be the subject of a separate article. Another literary form, dance, was also present at this show. Because of the constraints, computers were mainly involved in the choreography, which the dancers then performed.
Derek Baron is a composer, musician and writer based in New York. They have released a number of solo recordings of chamber, computer and concrete music on record labels such as Recital, Pentiments, Penultimate Press and Regional Bears.
I listened to his work To the Planetarium, a piece that Derek composed during pandemic. At the very beginning of the piece, the word goodnight is played irregularly through the left and right ear vocal channels, which gave me a sense of dreamy disorder. He also has many recordings of interviews and some instrumentation in this work. The texture of the sound always reminds me of an ethereal dream world. And it makes me quiet to listen to his work, which I feel is more like a recording of all the meaning in life. I feel that I can record sounds in a similar way and spread and express my thoughts.
Another of his works, Curtain, starts with a slow rhythm of flute, violin, guitar, keyboard and bass clarinet, then the music becomes more gentle and passionate. This beautiful melody with a touch of melancholy makes me feel very comfortable when I listen to this piece.
This exhibition is mainly for people to stop and relax and rest, and the exhibition is based on ASMR. The exhibition is very innovative, allowing visitors to experience the works in the exhibition while taking a break.
ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. ASMR is being used as a form of self-medication to combat the effects of loneliness, insomnia, stress, and anxiety. Since its first appearance in 2009, ASMR has become a global internet phenomenon and has spawned a community of ASMR creators. Creators record videos by whispering or eating, touching or tapping. The attempt is to trigger a chain reaction in the viewer’s body and brain that leads to relaxation.
There are many ASMR installations to experience in the exhibition. The brain-shaped pillow in the middle is a great place to lie down and watch various ASMR videos. The overhead lighting throughout the exhibition is also dimmed and lit up like breathing. It was like living in a giant monster’s body.
In the first class we will need to decide on possible research questions. I have considered two general themes, the first sound about nature. It is also related to the current problem of climate change, and I wanted to study the theme of disappearing sounds. Disappearance is defined as something diminishing to nothing, something ceasing to exist. Vanishing sounds can come from both natural and artificial objects.
Many artists have used ice melting to represent a glacier’s passing. Paul Kos’ The Sound of Ice Melting, 1970 Eight microphones are placed near two blocks of ice to record and transmit the sound of melting material as the ice returns from the solid to the liquid state through a system of amplification. This work is based on an ancient Zen sutra about the sound of one hand clapping. Here, Kos surrounds two 25-pound blocks of ice with eight microphones that recall the political press conferences prevalent during the Vietnam War when Kos created this work. Zen values this absurdity as a way of transcending the limits of ordinary discourse and rational thought – an experiential process that lies at the root of all political conflict. Paul Kos uses everyday materials and video to formulate a playful conceptual engagement with life and the world. Responding to simple, humble materials and site-specific indigenous elements, he mines their physical properties and metaphorical possibilities. In these works, Kos uses humor to connect the stuff of life with more significant issues of time and spirituality.
Sixteen chairs are made with bent metal tubes, and ice blocks are used for the seats and backs of the chairs. In a short period, the melting of the ice blocks leads to the disintegration of the object and the loud noise of its structure falling.
