Part 5 of 6, The active listener; Fluxus experience and the recent rebirth of interactive music

Spirit of Gravity

In 2001, Brighton saw the reawakening of the experimental music event. Several factors contributed to this result, such as eclectic music genre crossovers, new electronic music equipment encouraging experimentation and interaction from MPCs to MAX/MSP, cheaply available high quality devices for live performance, as well the fad for ‘anything goes’ anti commercial, anti elitist music venues such as squats and warehouses, as a platform for underground experimental artists to exhibit. The introduction of a 'late licence' to venues such as pubs and bars was also a factor, as even small venues now have the opportunity of increasing their profits by serving drinks longer, live music has become the tool with which to attract customers to their establishment. This increase in demand has made it possible for music groups which are not targeted at popular culture to stage events. With the advent of file sharing technologies on the internet, musicians can promote their music to a mass audience at no cost, and this has enabled experimental musicians to establish followings, where previously they were likely to struggle against the tide of big budget mass marketed corporations. In addition, product sale has plummeted due the accessibility of music files that can be downloaded instantly and free of charge, resulting in an increased budget for the promotion of the music event. The popular music industry now draws its largest profits from events or 'club culture', consequently genres have branched and fused, varying in relation to social subcultures to meet the demands of its target audiences, however, as the event is centred around a 'dance culture' the dominance of rhythmical structure renders 'club music' generic.

The musical collective 'Spirit of Gravity' is distinctive in its rebellion against the mass marketing of the clubbing industry and the repetitive structures of modern electronic music styles. Promoting an alternative, experimental approach to music, each event is unique and the encounterer leaves with an experience. All events are documented in a regularly updated online blog, with a description of the act and atmosphere of the performance. In addition to photographs, short videos of the live event are interspersed in the text alongside sound bytes. The artists' involved, experiment with sonic and visual technologies, and in the creation of their music often employ unconventional instruments, home-made modified synthesisers, or assortments of household objects manipulated to create sound. Their focus lies in improvised performance; concerts are theatrical and often interactive, always including unusual instrumentation and employing the element of chance.

An exemplary event took place at the Marlborough Theatre, Brighton, in March 2007. The venue consisted of a small stage with seats for fifty people, situated above a local pub. Bingo boards were placed on each seat and the performer, Hot Roddy, acted as both musician and ‘caller’. After each bingo number was randomly selected from a bag, Hot Roddy called the number and performed a piece which coincided with that number using a sampler to play a variety of recordings of calling nicknames for the numbers such as “number 10, Tony’s Den, Big Ben, cock and hen” whilst improvising on sitar to a loop of electronic noise music played from a laptop. This was a demonstration against the demise of light-hearted games when taken over by big business organisation such as Gala or Mecca Bingo, companies who have replaced a traditional game with another moneymaking ploy, devaluing the social aspect in favour of a new gambling market. Hot Roddy entertained, implicating the audience in his music and inviting them to interact in the game. The winner did not leave empty-handed, but was invited onstage to accept the reward of a bag of flour, eggs and milk – the ingredients for pancakes, as it was Shrove Tuesday. In such interactive music performances the encounterer is presented with an experience entirely different to the typical youth culture music event. The listener is connected to the composition process, which stimulates the creative sensibilities of the audience.

At the Phoenix Gallery, Brighton, in November 2008, Henry Collins, a member of the collective Spirit of Gravity, played his newly-invented instrument in a project dubbed 'Slash's Wormhole' (fig. 15): a stand-up vacuum cleaner with guitar strings strung to the neck, and an electronic pick-up on the body. Functioning as both electric bass guitar and household cleaning device, this gag demonstrates many ideals that Fluxus artists held dear. As the mechanical drone of a vacuum cleaner is usually perceived as an unpleasant sound, this project questions whether the sound is dismissed as noise only because of the situation we are used to hearing it in – whilst performing the mundane ritual of household cleaning. Collins encourages the listener to "pay attention to noises around you, by magnifying sound you usually block out"[1]. Once taken out of the household context and brought into a new environment, the sound of the hoover itself is focused on. The low growl of the motor and ‘whirr’ of the fan create an ominous bass line.

The Futurist Luigi Russolo affirms ‘every noise has a tone, and sometimes also a harmony that predominates over the body of its irregular vibrations’[2]. So as the sound of the vacuum cleaner is part of the piece, it is joined by the performer plucking the guitar strings on the body.  Furthermore, it demonstrates that by viewing everyday objects in a new light, art can be found in the small experiences, which compose our lives. Fluxus chairman George Maciunas would have relished the dual function of the instrument, as usefulness and economy were essential in his art objects.

Henry Collins manipulates technologies to transform everyday objects into resonant instruments. In 'Kettle and Fridge Act' (fig. 16) clip on microphones are attached to the bodies of the devices, so as to pick up and amplify all the minute surface vibrations as current passes through their circuits. In the interactive game 'Midi ping-pong', piezo transducers are positioned on the table to generate a current, which in turn triggers a sound when the ball makes contact with the surface. 'House Music' (fig. 17) is an anthropomorphised multitude of domestic appliances, comically located similarly to the positions of the members of a rock band and their instruments. Each device produces a tone, the role of the drum kit incarnated by a food blender which keeps the tempo, punctually colliding with a cymbal once every rotation. When listened to individually, the distinct contrast in timbres between the machines is surprising to notice, particularly as we usually receive the sound as a uniform background noise. Interestingly, if we were to cover our eyes and challenge our hearing alone to distinguish one electrical household appliance from another, regardless of volume, we would struggle to guess which one was which, although these noises encircle us every day. Through the magnification of the fundamental noises surrounding us, Collins alerts us to the continuous, intricate operations of our subconscious mind, which filters the noise of our industrial surroundings.

Figure 18 shows an installation in the sculpture department of Brighton University in 2002, where the interactor listens to the sound of the environment through a pair of headphones. Microphones positioned in the empty room transmit all sounds occurring in the space. The participant is thus alerted to the impossibility of hearing silence. The installation is entitled ‘Now that’s what I call music’, as it focuses the encounterer’s sensitivity to all sound, and values the sensory experience of indeterminate noise.

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[1] Henry Collins, personal interview, December 12^th 2008.

[2] The Art of Noises (1913), translated from Italian. (New York, Pendragon Press, 1986)

Sound Art exhibition opening, private view 18th February 2012

thickear presents ‘quite-slight’

quite-slight will take place at ARBEIT 4 Helmet Row London EC1V 3QJ, from Feb 18th until Feb 25th. Private 
view: Saturday, Feb 18th 18:00
‘quite-slight’ is an exhibition of sound related art works due to take place at the Arbeit Gallery in East London.

The Arbeit Gallery is not a pristine white cube exhibition space. It is an informal setting, home to a small number of studio spaces, not hermetically isolated from environmental sounds or appropriate for blacking-out.

‘quite-slight’ is more a response to its habitat than a shoehorning of inappropriate works into a preexiting site. It is as much a statement of intent than a post facto pronouncement. ‘quite’, meaning - to the utmost (when spoken, the meaning can vary with the tone of voice). ‘slight’, meaning - to a small degree.

Discrete works, some silent, some occurring sporadically, perhaps faint and minimal, re ect the choice of this double gestured title.

The title ‘quite-slight’ has a twofold consonance. In textual terms it is the recurrence of similar sounds, especially those at the end of a word. In music, the combination of notes that are in harmony with each other due to the relationship between their frequencies.
This exhibition attempts a certain harmony with the space it inhabits, accepting its locale, the occasional noise of the co ffee machine and low hum from the overhead fan heaters.

‘quite-slight’ does not attempt to foist upon the space, but cohabits, being heard amongst these sounds, and seen subject to the natural illumination from the glassed ceilings quiet-lights.

http://arbeit.org.uk/

Lightworks festival - Sound Art, March 16th 2012

Lightworks 2012 - Annual International Arts Festival

www.lightworks.me

Lightworks is a free, annual, international festival of film, sound art, sculpture and installation in Grimsby, N E Lincolnshire, UK. Run by staff and students from Grimsby Institutes HE creative courses, Friday March 16th 2012, 6 10pm.

Sound: Magz Hall has been awarded the sound commission for her intriguing and beautiful work Radio Mind which will be developed further for Lightworks. This work uses and references radio to complex, multi-layered effect. ‘Radio Mind investigates the shifting terrains of the transcendent and the quotidian through new communications technologies.’ The blog for Radio Mind is here: http://magzhall.wordpress.com/radio-mind/

Part 4 of 6, The active listener: Fluxus experience and the recent rebirth of interactive music

George Brecht: 1957-64 Composition

  George Brecht wrote a text in 1957 entitled Chance-Imagery, which traced the role of chance in mathematics and science and related it to philosophy considering, amongst others the pivotal concepts of Jackson Pollock[1], and describing a formula for generating chance in visual art. Brecht initially enrolled in John Cage's experimental composition class following communications with Cage on the subject of these ‘chance determined processes’. His interest in aleatoricism continued through his experiments in Cage's class, where he directed these investigations towards the compilation of sounds. As early as 1959, Brecht composed Card Piece for Voices, where cards are shuffled to determine both the sequences of lyrics, and note pitches on which the lyrics are sung.

The Event score originates with George Brecht, who constructed worded motifs on small pieces of card and presented them in Cage's classes, to initiate a discussion based around the possibilities each idea presented. Brecht notes: 'the score is an event; so is the finding an incident of it. In composing music, the composer permits an experience by arranging a situation in which sound arises. If a musical score (sound-score) prepares a musical (sound) situation, the event-score prepares one for events in all dimensions'[2]. In Brecht's Event scores, the initial idea is minimalistic, so as not to impose but inspire artistic expression in an action.

An illustrative example is his 1962 Event score Concerto for Orchestra, (fig. 13) which reads 'exchanging'. The encounterer may follow this in any means, as the object is not provided. The score is comprised of a single word, and the lack of a supporting sentence gives it an abstract quality, highlighting its conceptual value. The use of a verb, instead of a noun, presents it as not an instruction but a continuous action. The implication is to explore the possibilities of the action, not to arrive at a given outcome. The isolation of this single word provides a distance, which shows the nature of the Event score to be a contemplative, personal, and simplistic experience. In the form the participant chooses to execute the score, he reveals something about himself, rather than becoming simply a tool through which the composer can dictate his message. Such forms of Event scores are like mini experiments to gain knowledge and an understanding both of our behaviour, and of our environment.

Concerto for Orchestra presents an abundance of choices: what is to be exchanged - a physical object, or a communication, gesture, handshake; with whom is 'it' to be exchanged? The title of the composition provides a setting, participants and props, but does not contribute guidance for actions. Although the title suggests a sonic outcome, the body of the score does not confirm this. As previous Fluxus scores have focused on indeterminate sound, it could be construed that the 'concerto' is composed of all sounds within the time the performer chooses. Alternatively 'exchanging' could refer to an exchange of notes, phrases or melodies and motifs, using the instruments of the orchestra. In observing the choices the performer makes in realising the score, we are offered a glimpse of their person.

As George Maciunas began to organise festivals for Fluxus Events, Brecht composed variations on his scores with specific performance instructions called 'Fluxversions'. These adaptations are no longer an exploration of a situation, but a theatrical exposition of a theme. Fluxversions are indebted to the Futurist movement, which introduced a free form of theatre.

The Futurist movement was launched by Filippo Marinetti (1876-1944), in a Manifesto published in the French newspaper Le Figaro in 1909. Futurists introduced the noise of machinery into the context of music, as they admired the industrial advances of humanity over nature. In 1913 Luigi Russolo built large scale instruments called 'itonarumori', which generated noise resembling the sounds of technology, exploiting the contrast between sounds that machines can produce over the capabilities of traditional instruments, which Futurists dismissed as limited and belonging to an era long gone. In theatre, Futurists rejected all traditional dramatic genres and scenographies, as banal or irrelevant, in its place laying emphasis on movement and gesture. Futurists engaged in crude parodies and harsh ridicule both as an attack against the stereotypical bourgeois audience of theatre, and to condemn conventional theatrical content. The Futurists sought to empower their audiences through this open form of theatre.

Brecht’s Fluxversions are designed to provoke the audience, as each is highly unexpected and left completely unexplained. Some Fluxversions are designed to parody the rituals and traditions of Western music, others poke fun at the role of the audience. Each is a large protest on a small scale.

Concerto for Orchestra, Fluxversion 2, mocks the traditional concert situation. In asking the players to exchange their scores, Brecht objects to the form of traditional concert recital where an orchestra faithfully recreates the piece of music. Through this he redefines the concept of a music performance, exchanging the conventional mode of repetition of a score for his updated model of interactivity.

Fluxversion 3 takes the form of a game. The orchestra is divided to create two war-like fronts, wind musicians against the strings, in a lurid, farcical battle. As the orchestra manoeuvre their instruments in combat as weapons, only the conductor retains his dignified status, allowed to rule supreme as the judge. This caricature of the traditional orchestra ensemble remonstrates against Viennese institutions. Brecht plants a further humorous twist in the deconstruction of the word 'concerto' which derives from the Latin 'concertare'. This can mean either 'to dispute' or 'to work together', revealing Brecht's inspiration for the score.

Octet for Winds (1964) also divides the performers into opposing 'teams' challenging them in a childlike competition. Here, a vat or basin filled with water is in the central position, and wind musicians gather around the perimeter facing each other, holding their instruments at the ready. A toy sailboat is placed in the water, and it becomes each performers quest to blow through their instruments with enough strength to puff the boat to an opposing 'shore', whilst simultaneously playing 'some popular tune'. The infantile joy and innocence in this piece is made absurd by the context proposed by the title, again ridiculing the traditional orchestra.

In a feature section for the August 1962 edition of Stars and Stripes, the US Airforce newspaper, the Fluxus artists Benjamin Patterson and Emmett Williams succeeded in publishing some Fluxus propaganda. Williams plays the role of interviewer to a comically mad Patterson, who retaliates to a question with: "What do you mean is it music? Of course it's music. It's performed on a musical instrument, it's taking place in a concert hall, and I'm a trained musician!"[3]. In listing the materials necessary to become a musician (one instrument, one concert hall, one title), Patterson satirises elitist customs.

Brecht uses water as an instrument in his Event Drip Music (1962). This performance documents the sound of water falling from elevated vessel into another. 'Drip' connotes a miniscule happening, and in its small size, gains the audiences' attention. In minimising the sound in quantity and amplitude, Brecht zooms in on the concept of the alert and focused listener. This piece was initially explored using vials and pipettes from a laboratory as Brecht earned a living as a chemist for some time (fig. 14). As with the Fluxversion, he expanded the action from its minimalist essence and converted it into a more accessible performance: figure 15 shows Dick Higgins stood on a ladder with a bucket on the ground and watering can in hand. As with many Fluxus events, the execution was simple, practical, brief, and used mass-produced objects, encouraging the audience to focus solely on everyday sounds. It demonstrates the do-it-yourself attitude towards music that Fluxus artists employ to involve the audience.

 

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[1] George Brecht: Events - A Heterospective, Alfred Fischer, Julia Robinson and Kasper Konig, (Museum Ludwig, Köln, 2006), page 22.

[2] Quote from article entitled EVENTS. (assembled notes.), page 226 of George Brecht: Events - A Heterospective, Alfred Fischer, Julia Robinson and Kasper Konig, (Museum Ludwig, Köln, 2006).

[3] Benjamin Patterson in discussion with Emmett Williams, in an article entitled Way Way Way Out, published in the American Army magazine The Stars and Stripes, 30 August 1962

Part 3 of 6, The active listener: Fluxus experience and the recent rebirth of interactive music

 Fluxus in Protest

La Monte Young produced an Event score simply named Composition 1960 # 2, which invites the performer to build a small fire in front of the audience and listen to the sounds it produces until it burns out, with or without amplification. In Composition 1960 # 5 (fig. 10) a butterfly is the only intentional sound producer. The audibility of this piece is entirely dependent on chance happenings determined by situations in and outside the performance area. This piece is particularly original as it focuses on the intricate workings of nature, and the value of each sound produced, however small; it alerts the listener to the sounds of movement. Young asserts: ‘I felt certain the butterfly made sounds, (…) unless one was going to dictate how loud or soft the sounds had to be before they could be allowed into the realms of music… the butterfly piece was music as much as the fire piece’[1]. This simplification of the concept of music demonstrates the Fluxus opposition to rigid Viennese traditions.

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) was the innovator of atonality in an era of Romanticism. He created a new musical language where all notes remain equally important and there is no dominant key. In 1921, Schoenberg developed the twelve-tone technique, a method of composition using tone rows, where all twelve notes of the chromatic scale are repeated in a pre-determined sequence. This sequence can be reversed, inverted, or inverted and reversed, but a note can only sound after the remaining eleven have been played. This can be transposed to different octaves, and any instrument may play each note. Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) built on these techniques: in his serialist compositions all music components, such as timbre and dynamics, are determined by these rules. Stockhausen began to include other parameters into this form such as the spatial location of a sound.

At the 1964 New York Festival for the Avant-Garde, a conflict arose amongst Fluxus artists. Stockhausen was to premiere his experimental theatrical piece Originale: in this piece we see cameramen filming one of Stockhausen's earlier compositions Kontakte, amongst models, poets and painters who are 'acting' as themselves. There is a Flux-like use of irony here, however, the timings of each action are governed by serialist rules. The performers included George Brecht, Dick Higgins, Allan Kaprow, Alison Knowles, Jackson Mac Low and Nam June Paik, all playing themselves.

George Maciunas fronted a protest against this concert, supported by Henry Flynt and Ben Vautier, distributing flyers (fig. 11) proclaiming Stockhausen to epitomize 'cultural imperialism'. Maciunas objected to any mathematical approach to composition, as his vision of music is described by the movement he named: the word Fluxus derives from the Latin to 'flow'. The picketers were opposed to all European high culture, which they felt to be constrictive and elitist. However, they were soon to be joined by Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles and Allan Kaprow, who each performed, and protested against Originale.

Fluxus poked fun at the notion of the composer's grandeur, and made games of the artist's exaggerated status. The concept of art being encompassed within the individual’s perception of it, each person's equally important and valid, is prominent in many works. Ben Vautier questioned the authority of art critics by exhibiting certificates which proclaimed 'BY THE PRESENT CERTIFICATE I BEN DECLARE AUTHENTIC WORK OF ART ....... DATE ....... (I DONT SIGN)'[2]. In Dick Higgins' Anger Song # 6 of 1966, busts of Wagner are destroyed to declare an end to Viennese traditions in music; the Fluxists condemned all Western pre twentieth century composition as classist and racist. Further than rejecting the structural format of themes, developments and expositions in Romanticism, Fluxists were in contempt of the whole nature of the composition, opposing moralistic themes in classical music. The Fluxist Henry Flynt believed that all art and culture should have exclusively communist values and his political writings, particularly On Social Recognition, are demonstrative of this[3], however, this view was shared only by Maciunas and generally seen as one of his many eccentricities. In 1973 Maciunas outrageously advertised a concert with a poster reading '12 Big Names!' and a lists of artists, including Andy Warhol and minimalist Philip Glass, - when the recital hall was packed the famous surnames simply appeared projected onto a screen[4]. Subversively, Maciunas relished opportunities to play pranks on his audience, in one instance leading a group into a forest on the outskirts of New York in the darkest night, under the pretence of organising a happening. After confiscating the torch belonging to each of his guests, Maciunas inexplicably disappeared, taking with him not only the sole source of light, but driving the several miles home in the vehicle in which they had all arrived.

  Absurd scenarios and impossible predicaments often featured in Fluxus Events. The humour employed by Fluxus artists was of a playful nature, decidedly more light-hearted than the farces and dark satires of Dada or Futurist theatre. A shining example is La Monte Young’s Piano Piece for David Tudor #1, 1960, where the performer is invited to feed the piano with hay and water, and ends when the piano decides whether or not to eat (fig 12). George Brecht also poked fun at the rituals of concert performers, in Concerto for Clarinet, Fluxversion 1 (1962) a clarinet is suspended from above, and the performer must leap into the air in an attempt to play the dangling instrument, aiming to catch the reed between his lips. Both in the fantasy world of the former piece, and in the game element of the later, a youthful indulgence is present, and upon examination this becomes apparent in all Fluxus works. Even in the demolition of objects as a protest form, the Fluxus artist embodies the role of a naughty child.

The material value of an instrument or object is unimportant within Fluxus, as it is the experience of music and art that is valuable, not the artwork or instrument itself. Al Hansen famously pushed a piano off a five storey building, which was then to be repeated as an Event in 1959 entitled Yoko Ono’s Piano Drop. The colossal sound of wood smashing to pieces on a hard concrete pavement with the last jolts of the strings, hammers, ivory keys and brass pedals, became a composition. The destruction of a classical instrument also occurs in Nam June Paik’s One for Violin (1962), where the performer is invited to lift a violin as slowly as possible and, when they feel ready, smash it upon a surface. The anti-art statement is clear in such Fluxus works but, more importantly, in demolishing a traditional instrument Paik demonstrates the Fluxus belief in ‘real’ sound. To Fluxus artists sounds, which you can see happening are more interesting than those, which are not obvious. Paik reveals the mechanics of instruments in his Exposition of Music (1963). Five television sets are placed on top of an upright piano. Inside the piano is a series of cameras recording and documenting the mechanics and manoeuvres inside as each key is pressed and the hammer touches the string. The television screens show the audience what is happening inside the piano as it is electronically played, revealing what is hidden and therefore making the sound of more value in the Fluxus attitude.

The artist Rirkrit Tiravanija began to deconstruct the role of the curator by inviting the audience to install Fluxus paraphernalia and a miscellany of associated articles into Hallwall's Contemporary Art Centre’s gallery during a 1992 exhibition. As the audience entered, they were handed an Event card inviting them to pick up some white gloves and move an object to where they felt was appropriate. This idea epitomises the spirit of Fluxus, where the role of the audience is to participate in the creation of the product. For this exhibition Christian Marclay provided an artwork called Tape Fall which consisted of clear bin liners filled with cassette tape commenting on the disposability of mass marketed music. Marclay pays tribute to Nam June Paik in Guitar Drag (2000): an electric guitar is trawled along the street, producing a diverse variety of creaks, twangs and other noise, as the pickup on the bridge amplifies the strings as they are rubbed, irritated, and eventually snapped, accompanied by monumental amounts of feedback.

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[1] Quote taken from page 106 In the Spirit of Fluxus, Elizabeth Armstrong and Joan Rothfuss,  (Walker Arts Centre, Minneapolis, 1993)

[2] Catalogued in Happening and Fluxus, Sohm, H. (ed), (Koelnischer Kunstverein,

Cologne, 1970), pages unnumbered.

[3] Flynt summarises his findings in an article printed in Fluxshoe, David Mayor, Ken Friedman and Mike Weaver (eds) (Beau Geste Press, Langford Court South, 1972) page 33.

[4] Poster catalogued in Fluxus: Selections from the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Collection, Clive Phillpot and John Hendricks (eds), (Museum of Modern Art, New York), 1988, page 32.

Graphic scores opportunity

CALL FOR GRAPHIC NOTATION SCORES
New ensemble of four experimental musicians calls for graphic scores without any fixed pitch notation. The ensemble uses laptops, low-fi analogue equipment, creative DJing, realtime sampling, etc.
Info: Arturas Bumsteinas, Rinktines 21-64, Vilnius, 2051, Lithuania.
E: arturas@bumstein.com
WEB: www.bumstein.com
Ongoing.

Sound art radio

FEMALE COMPOSERS' RADIO SHOW
'Hildegard to Hildegard' is a weekly radio show on Soundart Radio 102.5fm in South Devon, UK. The show profiles female composers working in the classical tradition alongside contemporary sound works, with an emphasis on electronic and experimental music, although anything is considered. Submissions are invited (preferably on CD) from female composers who would like their work to reach a wider audience. The station broadcasts on fm in Dartington and Totnes and webstreams to a global audience.
Submissions to: Ariane Delaunois, Soundart Radio, The Gallery, Dartington Hall, Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EJ, UK
E: soundartwordsonpaper@googlemail.com
DEADLINE: Ongoing