Shortwave Radio, CD Players, the Inner Ear and Waltzing Goldfish
Medium-specific practices in sound
Theoretical discussions of medium specificity within electroacoustic and sonic art disciplines often draw on individualized works definitively bound to a singular medium. In practice, however, artists engage with the idea through a somewhat broader reflection on practices, projects and processes that prove challenging or impossible to “translate” into another medium.
About This Issue
Editorial
Articles
For the Record. Thoughts on Medium Specificity in the Sonic Arts
The concept of medium specificity has history. Jan Thoben visits works by Marclay, Miller, DeMarinis and Brand in order to review its theoretical implications and develop a perspective on medium-specific practices in sound that draws on the idea of technological affordance.
Technological Media
Hacking the CD Player
Experiments with 1990s-era CD players led Nicolas Collins to develop a number of player-specific hacks to control them more directly, reminiscing on turntablism techniques. The laser could skip across the surface like a needle, but it could also stutter, squawk and jump-cut like no other.
Les ondes cachées entre le son et la lumière : Détournements de cellules solaires dans « Scanner Me, Darkly »
Media zombification begets optical listening. Modified scanner heads are used in a process that converts signals from solar panels into sound in Stephanie Castonguay’s performative installation, Scanner Me, Darkly. The soul of an obsolete technology is revived and hacked for new purposes.
The Environment and the Human as Media
Ohr-Weide — Salix aurita: A Work for 150 floating loudspeakers by île flottante
Visitors for the 50th anniversary of Basel’s Merian Gärten were treated to a site-specific work created by île flottante. In Ohr-Weide — Salix aurita, 150 floating loudspeakers travel downstream emitting sounds entirely made from voice recordings, extending the surrounding environment.
Performing the Listener: Utilizing auditory distortion products in the compositional process
Contemporary electroacoustic artists such as Brian Connolly draw on and exploit the increasingly common practice of integrating psychoacoustic phenomena. His work forges new artistic areas that employ the listener’s ear itself as an “instrument” or medium that in turn generates sound.
Radio
Low-Watt Radio and the Technological Mediation of the Voice: Or, Radio, voice and the sonic commons
As far back as 1993, Kathy Kennedy was using low-watt radio in performance works for choir and radio broadcast that addressed and explored issues of public and private space, and the ubiquitous technological mediation of the voice.
Requiem for Radio: Sound sculptures, shortwave simulcasts, performances and pirates
Requiem for Radio is a body of works created by Amanda Dawn Christie that uses a variety of mediums and materials to explore the loss of the Radio Canada International (RCI) shortwave transmission site, while engaging with and involving the international DX and pirate radio community.
Interviews
Crazy Things Happened that I Can’t Imagine Ever Happening Again: Interview with composer and visual artist Charlemagne Palestine
With a central theme of the resonance of physical and sonic materials inhabiting spaces, Charlemagne Palestine’s career extends from experiences as a bell ringer through studies with Pandit Pran Nath to a role in the late 1960s and early 1970s Downtown New York scene.
Other Items
Unpopular Music at the End of the Universe: Burning Man as a venue for multi-channel electroacoustic music
Deep in the Playa stands a circular structure offering shelter from the desert wind and respite from the bustling hub in the form of a non-stop programme of multi-channel works. Come for the sunset, stay for the sunrise.
SONUS.ca
Works by some authors and / or artists in this issue can be heard in SONUS.ca, the CEC’s online electroacoustic jukebox:
- Nico Arnáez
- Raylene Campbell
- Vincent Fillion
- Jullian Hoff
- Kathy Kennedy
- Sebastien Lavoie
- Félix Lebrun-Paré
- Elainie Lillios
- Jon Martin
- Jascha Narvesson
- Lukas Pearse
- Laurie Radford
- Pierre-Luc Senécal
- Remy Siu
- Stefan Smulovitz
- Barry Truax
- Hildegard Westerkamp
- Gayle Young
Media in This Issue
- Amanda Dawn Christie — Requiem for Radio: Full Quiet Flutter (2017 / 12:05), premiere performance | video
- Amanda Dawn Christie — Spectres of Shortwave (2016), stories excerpt from 35 mm film | video (5:00)
- Amanda Dawn Christie — Spectres of Shortwave (2016), towers excerpt from 35 mm film | video (0:56)
- Nicolas Collins — Die Schatten (1996), performed by Nederlands Blazers Ensemble in 1997 | video (7:34)
- Nicolas Collins — Tobabo Fonio (1986), performed by the composer in 1989 | video (8:45)
- Brian Connolly — Invisibilia (2014 / 8:20) | binaural audio
- Brian Connolly — Maeple (2015 / 6:16) | binaural audio
- Brian Connolly — Swarm (2016 / 11:26) | binaural audio
- Brian Connolly — Transcape (2015 / 10:04) | audio
- Paul DeMarinis — The Edison Effect (1989–96), excerpts from an audio installation series | video (3:21)
- île flottante and Lilian Beidler — Ohr-Weide—Salix aurita (2018), excerpts from a 2018 performance in Basel’s Merian Gärten | video (3:31)
- Kathy Kennedy — Pardio (2011), excerpts from a performance in New York in 2011 | video (3:04)
- Veronique MacKenzie — Depths of Sorrow (2012), excerpt from a 2012 performance with music by Lukas Pearse | video (1:45)
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