Flanear – working title
Flanear is a public art soundscape project that aims to raise awareness of the Melbourne CBD aural environment. The compositional material of the soundscape will be sourced directly from audio samples of the city centre and then combined and manipulated in ProTools. The proposed arena of exhibition, which is more a point of inspiration than aspiration, will be at a central public space within the CBD (such as Federation Square). The purpose of the project is to raise awareness of the aural environment residents of Melbourne commonly share and frequent. This knowledge has the possibility to alter perceptions of annoyance to that of appreciation if a deeper understanding of the nature of noises is achieved. A further possibility is to promote the aural soundscape of the Melbourne CBD as a unique entity worthy of experience.
This project is located within several related bodies of knowledge based on sound theories. The key theorists I am referencing are Luigi Russolo, Erik Satie and Pierre Schaeffer. These composers have contributed to understanding the manner in which we listen to our aural environments, and in what ways listening is, and has been, influenced and determined by social and technical conditions. Stepping away from the physics of acoustics and the physiology of the ear, Flanear examines the psychological processes of aural perception.
A peculiar element to point out is the proposed title of Flanear. This is a play on the French, literary term “flaneur”, that refers to writers who stravaig through the urban landscape, drawing inspiration from everyday mundane occurrences. Flanear aspires to be the aural equivalent in using typical sounds of the CBD as inspiration as well as material. This appropriation is indicative of my aesthetic approach to the soundscape; in recognising artistic merit within the mundane, subtly of composition is absolutely necessary. In many respects, hearing is hardly a delicate process. Constantly exposed to an abundance of noise, the physiology of the ear renders the majority of sounds consciously undetectable. To successfully make an audience aware of the complicated ratio between the modulations in immediate air pressure and the individual conception of listening, Flanear must offer an experience that is original enough to be recognised [simply] as presently occurring, but subtle enough for an active listener to then willingly return to naïve listening for self-evaluation. Even in hearing city sounds every day, memory of such a ritual is easily generalised. So whilst our listening manners will be questioned by the soundscape, what is just as important, and perhaps more attainable, is bringing to the foreground our perception of the aural environment. The creative literary method of flaneury is one I will be adopting for the project as it complements Russolo’s insistence that the urban aural landscape is ripe with artistic possibilities.
Luigi Russolo wrote his Futurist Manifesto in 1913, eager to prove the musicality of noise, specifically, noise of the then flourishing urban centres. He acknowledged that our perception of noise is culturally attuned; that is to say, what sounds were once considered unbearable have the potential to become the material of popular music. Traditional Bach listeners of Russolo’s past were shirking the boldness of Stravinsky and today electronica is a genre of popular music. Russolo realised that the emerging sounds of industrialisation offered an entirely new listening experience to be taken advantage of. Russolo’s Futurist sentiments were as shocking then as they are now seemingly archaic in my application of them; we have reached far beyond the novelty of early 20th century industrialisation to developed CBDs being hubs of activity saturated with the sounds of commuters, consumers, businesses and their respective technologies. What remains inherently relevant, however, is his idea of culturally attuned listening. Central to this is the insistence that any form of aesthetic can be an enjoyable one. The means are infinite – conditioning through repetition, insistence and saturation, commercialism as a powerful force in its own right, necessity for mental and emotional stability, gradually passing time as a determinant – but my intentions haven’t the time for cultural attunement. Just as Russolo longed for the noises of machines to be accepted instantly as musical, so too I hope for Flanear to complement city noises and become an aesthetic (to say musical may seem too hopeful) composition, if not in immediate listening then in wistful contemplation. My aspirations and convictions are closely tied to, if not self-indulgently encouraged by, Russolo’s Futurist Manifesto, and for this reason I will constantly return to his words for guidance. Outdated or not, Russolo demonstrated an eccentric conviction and a convincing lyricism that validates my project. And so upon a stream of his [then] crazy talk my own soundscape is realised in floating.
Erik Satie is often remembered as the grandfather of Muzak. Ignoring connotations to the low-quality MIDI songs of motel elevators, Satie was influential in recognising the ability to create music specifically for pleasant background noise. This “furniture” music was intended as a bed of noise over which other sounds gently travelled. In combining Satie and Russolo’s observations, Flanear offers the experience of using typically obtrusive city sounds in a composition, to be exhibited within the city, to raise awareness and hopefully appreciation of these noises. Satie’s reasoning behind his furniture music was to neutralise street noises and banish the banalities pauses in conversation worth listening inevitably contained. Not quite the advocator of creative noise per se, Satie demonstrated an understanding of the fleeting and unpredictable nature of listening. What becomes relevant from his intentions in relation to my project is the effect and demands a composition may have on listening; on one hand a piece may require all attention, whilst on the hand that Satie was promoting, a piece may distract listeners from unwanted outside noises so that they focus on what is desirable to them (such as a conversation, in Satie’s reasoning). Just as his initial experiments in furniture music were foiled as he had to run around and urge diners to stop listening quietly and politely to his compositions, so too I realise a certain amount of experimentation will be called for. I may have to begin wandering the streets of the Melbourne CBD with my own aural experiments to gauge how my compositions interact with the sounds of the city.
Acknowledging and listening to the noises within the CBD as autonomous entities is a tribute to Pierre Schaeffer. Schaeffer was a prophet of the sonic object – sounds that are regarded separate from their source. A key technique in achieving this separation is through repetition. After the first few repetitions, when naturally listeners try to understand from where the sound originates, the audience eventually begins to hear the sound simply as that – a sound. This is what is considered as reduced listening, whereby the cause and meaning of a sound is ignored and the physical qualities alone are appreciated. Since Flanear will source city sounds for a composition to be played in the city, this repetition will cause listeners to begin detaching a certain pitch to the imagery of a tram stopping. What is important to indicate here is the nature of acousmatics that Schaeffer details. Acousmatics, too, refers to the separation of sound from source. Flanear is to be an acousmatic composition, which superficially means it will be a prerecorded as opposed to live performance. In order to repeat a short, single tram noise enough times to induce reduced listening, electronic composition in ProTools is absolutely necessary.
Whilst I am able to demonstrate theoretical reasoning behind Flanear and am researching the technical methods I need to achieve such results, what is perhaps becoming my biggest concern is validating the relevance of the project. In terms of noise management in the city, there is the possibility that this conditioning of noises through repetition, in addition to sounds being perceived as autonomous and rich in their own right, may culturally attune ears to enjoy CBD noise. If my methodology becomes a compositional genre in its own right, this cultural attunement might accelerate in an unforseen manner.
TIME AND SPACE
Returning to an earlier sentiment, in attempting to reconstruct the Melbourne CBD’s aural environment in our memory we are confronted with stark stereotypes inherently influenced by cinematic representations. Idealised soundscapes masterfully recreated for films have not so much altered listening practices, but have affected the ways in which we remember noises. The mind’s exposure to intentionally dramatised sound becomes a recollection of a mediated reality, which begs to question how mediated our selves are. Through instigating reduced listening on a public audience, memories of noises have the potential to become high fidelity rather than hyper-realistic.
Environment that I sample sounds from has to be as similar as possible (time of day, intensity of noise etc.) to an allocated time for exhibition. Desirably, the piece would be displayed in a single location for a long period over a single day, as opposed to selected times throughout a week. Considering the aims of the soundscape, instigating reduced listening is something that is often viewed as being actively sought. Flanear, on an experimental layer, is investigating the possibilities of conditioning reduced listening through repetition, and this requires a consistent audience throughout the performance. The composition will be constructed through the repetition of several long soundscapes (30mins – 2hrs?) that individually source their sounds from a particular time of day. Skewing adherence with reality more frequently towards the end of the piece, thorough listeners (ie. Those who are near the piece, and city noise, the most) may incite conscious reduced listening.
Whilst Russolo devised a method with which to compose noise-sounds, none of his music remains. It is difficult to imagine one of his pieces without record of his noise instruments, let alone without an immersion in and comprehension of the aural environment and sensibility of the early 1900’s. Flanear is undeniably a temporally limited performance in its initial intentions; the composition will be quickly dated as the rapidly changing city means any given soundscape is endlessly variable. This in turns creates an artefact that is an historical record of a past aural environment and its accompanying sensibilities.
COMPOSITION METHODOLOGY
I will be composing Flanear in accordance to the methodology Luigi Russolo details in his Futurist Manifesto. In applying contemporary variables on a methodology devised almost a century ago, I am emphasising the perpetual and modifiable influence our acoustical perception has on realising aesthetic.
The time of day chosen to source the city audio samples will be determined by the structural composition of the soundscape (see above).
The sounds sourced for the composition of Flanear from the Melbourne CBD will first be categorised according to Luigi Russolo’s families of noises:
1. Roars, Thunderings, Explosions, Hissing roars, Bangs, Booms
2. Whistling, Hissing Puffing
3. Whispers, Murmurs, Mumbling, Muttering, Gurgling
4. Screeching, Creaking, Rustling, Humming, Crackling, Rubbing
5. Noises obtained by beating on metals, woods, skins, stones, pottery, etc.
6. Voices of animals and people, Shouts, Screams, Shrieks, Wails, Hoots, Howls, Death rattles, Sobs
(2004:13)
Russolo emphasises that all noises posses a characteristic “predominant general pitch” (2004:13). However I manipulate the sounds I collect, I will attempt to identify and thus conserve their pitches throughout the composition (which is simple enough given digital technology). Once arranged within their families of noises, the instrumentation of Flanear will be recreated.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Chion M (1994) Audio-Vision: Sound on screen, trans. Gorbman C. New York: Columbia University Press
• Cox C & Warner D, eds. (2004) Audio Culture: Readings in modern music. New York: Continuum
• Russolo L (1913) The Art Of Noises: Futurist manifesto
• Schaeffer P (2004) “Acousmatics” in Audio Culture. Cox C & Warner D, eds. New York: Continuum (76-81)
Annotated bibliography on the physiology of the ear and noise reduction techniques:
• Blesser B & Salter L (2007) Spaces Speak, are you Listening? Massachusetts: MIT Press
More theoretical than technical with detailed summaries/histories of key listening theories:
The Akusmatikoi students of Pythagoras would sit in silence listening to his teachings from behind a curtain. In perceiving sound without a visual anchor, a free-form auditory image can be realised. Through the metamorphoses of collective thought, the immensity of virtual space is constructed (182). (Concept of virtual reality similar to that of Brian Massumi – find ref.)
An aural environment that is neither dominated nor undermined by visual cues breaks from the Cartesian objective-subjective reality. What becomes the point of interest for acousmatics is not so much the cause or reaction to stimulus, but the act of listening itself.
Reduced listening creates an appreciation for virtual space, perhaps since this form of perception has the potential quality of being entirely customisable.
• Luce R D (1993) Sound and Hearing: A conceptual introduction. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
5.3 Methods of Noise Reduction:
(II.9) Impedance mismatches
The superimposition of inverted pressures will cancel sound.
eg. –p (t, x, y, z) the antinoise to noise p (t, x, y, z)
There is already technology for this, commonly applied more to the noise management of machinery. Problems arise in the necessary immediacy (t) of creating and synchronising noises for successful impedance mismatch so there is questionable relevance of this noise reduction technique on unpredictable soundscapes.
In terms of Flanear, the repetition of typical sound samples from the city could offer subtle interference in the perception of the composition, offering an aesthetic of discovery and self-awareness.
• Moore B (2003) An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing, 5th ed. London: Academic Press
Detailed accounts of the physical and psychological processes of acoustical perception and methods of masking.
• Reflection/refractions of sound means the sound image never quite does the original source justice (2).
• Transmission of sound through the middle ear is most efficient at middle frequencies (500-4k Hz). The middle ear as a mechanism reduces noise reflection and bone-conducted sound (22).
• Sound masking: the process by which the threshold of audibility for one sound is raised by the presence of another masking sound, measured in decibels. Concentration of multiple sounds around a similar frequency is more easily detected. Signal most easily masked by a sound having frequency components close to, or same as, those of the signal (65).
• Sensitivity to phase and critical modulation frequency: everyday sounds change frequency and amplitude constantly, therefore listeners are more sensitive to differences in time patterns than a wide separation of frequencies being out of phase (79).
• You can detect whether a complex sound (consisting of several frequencies) will be detected in a given background noise by calculating the thresholds of the most prominent frequency components. In two tone-masking, the signal-to-noise ratio at the output of the filter needs to be quieter than the noise so the signal is not detected (at medium frequencies, the signal will be detected if it isn’t more than 4dB below the noise output). If a low frequency masker is amplified, the masked threshold of a high frequency signal increases (86).
• Swamping of neural activity evoked by signal/masker produces a significant amount of activity in auditory filters/critical bands, which normally respond to signal – therefore activity by signal is undetected. The masker must produce excitation to auditory filters that would otherwise respond to the signal (96).
• A tone with frequency below 5kHz will be masked when the subject cannot detect an effect on the time pattern (98).
• Plomp R (2002) The Intelligent Ear: On the nature of sound perception. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Reading a page of text on which numerous other texts have been printed is an analogy for our natural perception of multiple sounds (34).
In auditory perception, the mind often imagines a continuous flow of sound that allows listeners to focus on a single source. If a tone is interrupted 10-15 times a second, the interrupted tone with sound pure and continuous if the intervals are filled with sufficiently intense white noise. Having been referred to as the “cocktail party” phenomenon, this demonstrates a listener’s auditory induction (35).
