Took me long enough. Unfortunately public access to the actual prototypes is a no go, but here’s the exegesis anyway. Just for the record, I got second class Honours in the end. Or business class even, still chuffed either way. Enjoy!
Hopefully I will find time to upload all of the videos used in the project.
The categories for this prototype were inspired by Russolo’s mention, in his letter to Balilla Pratella, of the poet F. T. Marinetti’s account of a battle in free words. Marinetti created this language for his poetry that would destroy syntax and allow imagination to flourish without constraints. Russolo marvelled at the onomatopoeic astuteness of Marinetti’s depiction, capturing the essence of the battle through its noise:
Fury breathless ears eyes nostrils open! load! fire! What a joy to hear to smell completely taratatata of the machine guns screaming a breathless under the string slaps traak-traak whips pic-pac-pum-tumb weirdness leaps 200 meters range Far far in back of the orchestra pools muddying huffing goaded oxen wagons pluff-pluff horse action flic flac zing zing shaaack laughing whinnies the tiiinkling jiiingling tramping 3 Bulgarian battalions marching croooc-craaac [slowly] Shumi Maritza or Karvavena ZANG-TUMB-TUUUMB toc-toc-toc-toc [fast] crooc-craaac [slowly] crys of officers slamming about like brass plates pan here paak there BUUUM ching chaak [very fast] cha-cha-cha-cha-chaak down there up there all around high up look out your head beautiful!
F.T Marinetti, quoted in Russolo (1986:26)
In distancing myself from semantic descriptors, I applied this idea of onomatopoeia to Russolo’s six families of noises (1986:28). Observing the different families, I conceptualised single sound effects, written only with consonants, that I felt encapsulated the family’s characteristic sound.
My intentions to utilise Russolo’s six families of noises came early in planning the project, although I have continually struggled with exactly how I could name categories without having a space on the Videodefunct platform to display the table detailing the different families. Referring back to the sound samples I had already composed for Flânear and deciding which families they fell into, I appropriated the noises within the samples to determine my onomatopoeic categories. This process of naming the categories came relatively naturally and I was content with the results.
The idea of a purely perceptual descriptor for the categories derived from my intentions to abstract the sounds from their sources, instead placing emphasis on the aural qualities themselves. Perhaps through nonsensical categories, users navigating Flânear would be encouraged to form their own connections and opinions of media content to the classification devices. The supposed absurdity echoes Marinetti’s free words; imagination without strings. The representation of a Melbourne CBD soundscape in this example transcends the physical limitations of strolling through the city. Instead, soundwaves and their formations become the paths to traverse; follow a rumble down to a screech and leave with a bang.
Looking at a screenshot from the Videodefunct category management page once fourteen discrete media artefacts (hereby referred to as posts) had been entered and categorised into the system instigates several reactions. Although satisfied that the categories were certainly appropriate to describe all of the samples, the sheer volume of posts in each category suggested that there was too much crossing-over for this taxonomy to coherently classify the posts.
Russolo himself said of his six families that it “encapsulated the most characteristic of the fundamental noises; the others are merely the associations and combinations of these” (1986:28). True as this may be, my use of the six families of noises was capable in demonstrating similarities between categories, but characteristic differences, which are just as necessarily required for a cohesive folksonomy, are notably missing. This trend was reiterated in the tags I chose for this prototype.
Fully aware of the manipulations I had put the audio samples through in ProTools, I hypothesised that indicating this through classification devices would allow users insight into how sounds were treated and thus what sonic characteristics represented the Melbourne CBD soundscape. I want it to be apparent that all the sounds were sourced directly from the city, despite not necessarily indicating the exact sound sources themselves.
The tags for this prototype were the various manipulations used in ProTools to create the different samples, here explained:
• High-pass filter: equalisation technique that mutes higher frequencies
• Low-pass filter: equalisation technique that mutes lower frequencies
• Reverb: echo effect
• Repetition: cutting and pasting sound events repetitively
• Layered: numerous tracks layered on top of each other
• Stretch: stretches a sonic event over a longer duration
• Shrink: shrinks a sonic event to a shorter duration
• Reverse: plays sonic event backwards
Although I found some validity in revealing to users exactly what processes the audio had been through, there were far too many crossovers in the finished prototype to indicate any reasonable differentiation between posts. This caused a problem by destroying any real sense of navigation as posts were too readily revealed. Visually, selecting clips on the videodefunct display often resulted in an almost identical selection of clips appearing.
This issue can unfortunately be attributed to two possible errors in my process: one being the choice of the tags themselves, but another also being the samples themselves and methods I took in creating them. Rather than seek retribution in redoing all the audio samples so as not to allow overzealous crossovers with this tagging technique, perhaps it would be better advised to move far away from tagging according to ProTools audio manipulation devices.
Although the classification devices utilised in this prototype does well to attempt to indicate the nature of Melbourne CBD sounds, it falls short of fulfilling a navigatable representation of a Melbourne CBD soundscape. However, where taxonomy failed, the visuals and titles flourished. My personal impression of Melbourne’s CBD is that of a young, fresh location with a distinctly quirky attitude. Titles for posts were chosen quite pragmatically, often referring to the visuals themselves (such as objects, text or activities captured) or source location details. What emerged, once testing the prototype, was an alternative narrative altogether separated from the audio content, created by the horizontal display of image and text. Random combinations of photos and titles began telling their own stories that complemented the audio and further reiterated my impression of Melbourne’s CBD and consequently how I was representing it.
Given that the categories and tags were audio-oriented, the text and therefore images did not stray, crucially to Flânear’s intentions, from representing a Melbourne CBD soundscape. Serendipitously, the written narration emulated the representational aesthetics of Marinetti’s free word poetry.
In conclusion:
Hence the need to write about the classification ideas I have instead, maybe indicate a deeper structure than arrows and symbols seem to.
Thinking about classification in terms of sound design. There is obviously a narrative to Flanear – a Melbourne CBD soundscape. Perhaps not narrative in a linear sense, but definitely a progression of impressions to recreate a situation. Sooooo.
First thoughts kept dancing around Russolo’s six families of noises as leading categories. This made me think about envelopes, how different sound events were packaged. Glasses tinkling, cars accelerating, enharmonic crescendos; trams crossing tram tracks, out of time pedestrian crossing, fragmented repetition suggesting constant movement. This was all very patricular, keeping true to Schaeffer and focusing on the sound object or event, how is it constructed? Although these qualities determine how I edit the sounds and create my samples, titles are still given quite literally (buskerdrums, glasses, intram etc.).
Defying A. Ward, perhaps:
… one of the archivist’s main responsibilities is to preserve or re-establish the ‘provenance’ of the documents is his care so that these circumstances will remain clear to future users. As life goes on so archives naturally tend to form series whose parts are interrelated and interdependent. Much of the evidential value of archives is lost if these series are split up and rearranged according to some scheme unrelated to their provenance. The arrangement and intitial description of archives should always reflect their provenance and function, rather than their physical form or their subject content.
(1990:2, A Manual of Sound Archive Administration. Hants, England: Gower.)
I am demonstrating that although [so far] I am focusing on the physical forms of sounds to archive them, the very fact that they are displayed in a multi-channel fashion allows me to preserve “provenance”.
And so to exhume a narrative. Returning to sound design, I’m begin to think about the samples in terms of ambiences and effects. These two components create a spatial soundscape, each combination with their own unique characteristics. Busy shopping street or cafe culture or road? Several dull background pedals or sporadic single sonic events?
This approach raises an opportunity to think more about audiovisual aspect – do I want to introduce some sort of ‘Foley’ category/tag that does use the visuals a bit more? I want to represent both movement and stillness where appropriate, in a manner that complements the overall effects of the soundscape.
Need to keep returning to Chion’s Audio-Vision (1994) if I go down this way, to understand how and what an audience will infer as sound-reality.
Attali and G. Ward speak of a blindness in urban surroundings, indicative of the spectacle society (Debord), treatable through Situationists tactics; and so can all this ultimately be archived? Evaluation and aesthetics in terms of Russolo, Schaeffer and Debord to satisfy what Chion, Attali and both Wards consider important.
SO first draft of classifications…
And on to videodefunct soon to see how these all work out. And then tweak. Then redo. And over and over and hope it develops. Or I develop.
I’m a bit hopeless inconsistent when it comes to tagging. I do like to hang onto the idea that perhaps an experiemental and unsure approach to tagging will help develop the project more than if, say, I had already formed a routine tagging habit that was difficult to adapt. But I’m sure than can still happen.
In 2003, Berlin-based sound artist Christina Kubisch began an ongoing project called “Electrical Walks.†This project employs specially built headphones that receive electromagnetic signals from the environment and convert them into sound. Kubisch maps a given territory, noting “hot spots†(ATM machines, security systems, electronic cash registers, subway systems, etc.) where the signals are particularly strong or interesting. She then loans the headphones to the public, allowing participants to undertake an auditory dérive through the invisible network of electromagnetic information. To date, Kubisch has undertaken her own personal walks in Germany, England, France, Ireland, Japan, Latvia, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovakia, Spain, Taiwan, and the United States, and has held public walks in Berlin, Cologne, Karlsruhe, Bremen, Oxford, and London. To accompany the interview with Kubisch in Cabinet no. 21, she has provided us with thirty sound samples gathered by her while walking through various cities.
Thank you Prank.
A few entires back I posted links to two online articles. This is where I toss my musings into Internet tides so they’re not lost in chicken scratchings.
Zeynup Bulut – “The Problem of Archiving Sound Works”
This essay tapped into ethnomusicology, which is splendid. Not in an 1890’s lighthearted racist kind of way, but in tying my loose project ideas into the media practice of archiving. Bulut introduces and asks some essential questions that I find I’m capable of asking without bending over backwards. His last paragraph best reveals relevance:
Finally, where dos the archiving of sound works stand in this picture? Since the archive is not a type of silent storage, archiving a sound word cannot order and classify it. The goal should be neither to put sound works into wordy cages, nor installing silent shelves for sound works. Instead, the goal should be to provide a medium, a place where sound words can unfold and be encountered, a place where sonic experience is encourages, and a place where personal knowledge can be constructed.
Bulut, 2006:15
Bulut has plenty to say about the nature of archiving and how sound as data does/should fit in. There isn’t really any conclusive indication as to how sounds should be categorised, but rather what should be preserved in archiving them.
First thing’s first before getting into this: do not get preoccupied with phenomenology. Memo – done. This tangent helps to address my question of what exactly is being archived in my project, and what relationship between archiving and historicity I’m exploring.
For years, we often did phenomenology without knowing it, which is much better than talking about phenomenlogy without practicing it.
Schaeffer, Traite des objects musicaux (1966:262)
“Rather than look to empiricism to provide a solution, Husserl sought an objective, but non-empirical foundation for logic” (2). Delving into phenomenology informs how and why I intend on abstracting my sound objects. The idea is offered that ‘intentional’ objects are realised through a multiplicity of acts of consciousness.
Adumbrations (Abschattungen): stream of perspectival views
“The acousmatic experience reduces sounds to the field of hearing alone” (3). So I can’t really justify using images of sound sources immediately (ie. when testing on Videodefunct). Better yet: begin with heavily pixelated/abstracted visuals – gradually clear up to [v. briefly] reveal rapid edits of sound source stills (from different perspectives, keeping with the adumbrations) – abstract again / fade to black?
Modes (functions) of listening: comprendre, ecouter, ouir et entendre
“… entendre represents a mode of listening that actively selects, appreciates and responds to particular attributes of sounds.” (4)
“Many of the techniques developed for producing concrete works depend upon variation. The composer subjects pre-recorded sounds to filtration, editing, looping, reverberation, or changes in speed or direction. The results of such processes must be tested again within the sphere of listening, to determine whether these variations present us with ‘the same’ sound object, or new sound objects entirely. Each variation is an investigation into the objectivity of the sound object” (6)
Concentration tapering… wilt. So just to conclude, I think this second essay has been more useful in terms of thinking about my actual composition methodology. It’s provoked plenty of thoughts on how I might actualise and refine my practice and to remind myself again – don’t get caught up in phenomenology.
October 31st – November 30th. Can’t say I really have anything planned for then.
