Australia’s premier sound art festival has begun. I spoke with Eamon Sprod, Lawrence English and Philip Samartzis, three key participants from the Melbourne leg.
Firstly Lawrence English
Bob: What role do you believe LA fulfills?
LE: Increasingly LA fills a position for presenting, expanding and solidifying the position of sound art in a wider contemporary australia media and art context. Just ten years ago the notion of sound art existed in but a few discrete spaces and was largely unknown at any kind of substantial ‘street’s level – today we find it in national papers, street press, policy documents from government agencies and increasingly australia is recognised for its strong movements and developments in this area.
Bob: Is there a certain relief or perhaps added pressure due to La’s pure focus on sound?
LE: From my perspective, it’s more of a pleasure to have such a focused event. it means that the emphasis of the work can reside with the ears and that’s an increasingly rare situation for concert going these days. There’s a true pleasure in listening, and that’s what we celebrate I guess…
Bob: Is there anyone is particular you’re keen to check out at this years festival?
LE: Brisbane has already happened so I’ve been spoiled with hearing everyone already. I must say there’s some real highlights – Marcus Schmickler’s Altars Of Sceince is amazingly intense, Toy Bizarre is powerfully immersive, Andrew Pekler was sublime and Nat’s set was a real journey through the fringes of post-everything.
Bob: What will you be performing at the festival? Will it be anything like Asobi (Sensory Projects)?
LE: I’ll be performing works from Kiri No Oto, the record that I just had published by Touch. The work is based around a sonic interpretation of mists – using the ideas of visual disortions as a means of creating a kind of audio cue almost.
Bob: What do you get out of performing live as opposed to your cd releases?
LE: Performance for me is a very different experience – it’s about sound in a space. on cd you forgo any control of spaces in which it’s experienced. Live, ultimately you shape those experiences depending on system etc etc
EAMON SPRODD (Tarab)
Bob: What role do you believe that LA fulfills?
ES: Liquid Architecture has attempted to carved out a slightly different area to work in than the other major festivals Whatismusic? and the recent MIBEM, basing itself more within what could loosely be called “sound art†rather than “experimental musicâ€. Acting as a complimentary force rather than an oppositional one. The Festival has over the years promoted installation, site specific performances, surround sound diffusions, artist talks and workshops, along side more traditional performances. They have continued to bring artists out to this country that would be unlikely or unable to come here.
Bob: Where did the idea for vacuum #1 come from? What do you hope to achieve?
ES: My initial idea was very different from what will actually take place, something more structured perhaps. It came out of my growing dissatisfaction with the standard 30 minute rock/jazz format performances, with audience sitting or standing watching someone (or someones) performing in front of them, followed by someone else doing another 30 minute set etc. Both from a performers point of view and as an audience member. Also from having a growing interest in installation, but finding the static nature at times a little problematic. So I basically started to think of more “site-specific†performance models. I do a lot of making sound in the outside, mainly to generate recordings, so it seemed logical to try and develop those “performances†into something that could be experienced by an audience. While this is somewhat different within a gallery space, we will be setting out to use the whole space, and actually incorporate the building itself in various ways, into the work. Obviously there is a vast history of “site-specific†performance, but this has so far, with the exception of the amazing and wonderful Rod Cooper, been a little under explored locally.
Bob: I’m gathering it’s quite improvisation based given that you are encouraging people to bring sound objects to the performance. Is having this impossible to control element part of the appeal, or is it about removing the distinction between sound artist and audience?
ES: Yes improvisation will play a role, but along side the many other strategies and methods of exploring sound. Improvisation is a useful tool, as it in theory leads to act of spontaneity, of chance, basically being able to open yourself up to and respond to the circumstances which you find yourself in. But I feel Improvisation has become a bit of a genre or style within experimental music, rather than a methodology. To me it is a means rather than an end in itself.
I am very interested in chance and reject the need to be in control (or at least see the futility of trying to exert control over anything) but I’m not sure that improvisation necessarily avoids those things. We wont be setting out to create chaos or anything like that.
While I am interested in breaking down the distinction between artist and audience, I hadn’t so much been thinking of having the audience play the objects, rather “donate†them to us to either play or arrange in some way. But I am very much interested in ways of involving the audience in what is going on though. Having the audience within the performance in some way, rather than listening/viewing from outside it. Some audience participation will be hopefully be possible, and even desirable, we’ll see what happens. However this is definitely not going to be some free form jam session.
I personally use a lot of found objects in my work. So on one hand I am hoping to get a bunch of interesting and strange things handed in, things I or the other artists would not have noticed or collected. I feel there has been a growing emphasis on instruments, music and musicianship and I am interested in moving away from this, and exploring all the many possibilities of sound. But on the other I am trying to encourage people to engage with their surroundings, to look and listen to the things around them on their way to the gallery, and hopefully beyond that. For me, my sound work acts as a way of interacting with and inhabiting my surroundings, so I am trying to share that with the audience maybe. To encourage people to get “in on the act†rather than just passively sit back and be entertained by our activities.
Bob: Continuous performance sounds grueling, have you been in training?
ES: Yes, it will be I guess. It is not designed to be a feat of endurance but rather an opportunity to explore other ways of working. So I haven’t been in training as such, although I have been playing around with different forms and methods of performance, or approaches to the sounds I make.
This project owes as much to installation and performance art, as it does to the standard music/concert based performance. We are attempting to do something rather different than simply trying to extend the usual 30 minute improvised set out over seven hours, so we will be employing a very different ways of working. We will be setting things up that run by themselves, things that will be visual as well as sonic, using various collections of objects and equipment which might be difficult, if not impossible to use in the usual performance situations. Basically trying to create a whole environment, rather than just a concert. Allowing things to happen at their own pace over time. This whole process of evolving construction will be on display and makes up a large part of the performance. I am personally very interested to see what the effects are on my thinking after seven hours for four days straight. And interested to see how long some of the audience members stay and listen for.
Bob: Is there anyone you’re particularly keen on catching this year? If so why?
Toy Bizarre/Cedric Peyronnet. I am quite a fan of his work. When I started listening to and making “sound art†he was one of the first people I came across. And not just for his own work, his label KAON (www.kaon.org/) was where I found out about many other really interesting sound artist, mainly working with field recordings and ideas of site-specifics etc. The compilation record he released and features on (in collaboration with Seth Nehil), the sound of nature: the nature of sound, is one of my all time favorites records.
Cedric will be making some form of contribution to vacuum #1 and I will be playing with him in Castlemaine on the 20th. So I am very pleased to get the opportunity to work with him.
PHILIP SAMARTZIS
Bob: Can you tell me about your immersion series? And what is your attraction to surround sound listening?
PS: I became interested in surround listening after attending a concert by Pierre Henry at the Adelaide Festival in 1995. Henry presented live soundtracks for two silent films, one for Dziga Vertov’ Man with a Camera and another for Walter Ruttman’ Berlin Symphony of a Great City using a multi-loudspeaker orchestra comprising 80 speakers arranged around the audience. I was fascinated by the way Henry extended the sonic experience beyond the proscenium to immerse the audience in a variety of spatial gestures. Henry of course is a pioneer of sound diffusion and was involved a long with Pierre Schaeffer in the first live presentation of musique concrete in 1948 using five speakers to distribute their mix of tape and electronic sounds. Henry’ work drew my attention to the history and practice of sound spatialisation. I use Immersion to promote this history in order to grow the awareness and appreciation of music that sits outside conventional arenas of experience.
Bob: How did you go about selecting who you wanted involved?
PS: Most of the pieces that I have programmed into immersion are pre-existing works that have been composed for multi-channel surround presentations. Reinhold Friedl’ is particularly interesting as it was created on a Neo Bechstein piano, which is the first piano with electric pick-ups built in the 20s for cinema presentations. Only a handful were ever made and only one is currently functional which Reinhold used to create a beautiful shimmering piece using a performance technique he terms as “inside piano’. Another work is by Jean Luc Guionnet comprising prepared and extended improvisational techniques to explore the dynamics and texture of several different church organs. The work is incredibly rich and powerful and presents the church organ in an entirely different light. Most of the program comprises composers working in surround who rarely have the opportunity to present their work in the public domain as stereo remains the dominant mode of audition.
Bob: What makes the planetarium a good venue for immersion?
PS: The planetarium is a great venue for critical listening due to the absorbent nature of the space that creates a neutral acoustic environment much like a cinematic space. It also has a fabulous sound system that is perfect for environmental and electroacoustic music which often has a broad range of dynamics and textures. The planetarium also provides the opportunity to program visual accompaniment that is different to the usual video wallpaper most venues privilege. Therefore this Immersion includes a trip across time and space to a faraway galaxy to accompany the listening program.
Bob: Can you tell me a little bit about some of the overseas artists performing, just in terms of what as curator you think they can bring to the performance?
PS: The international artists come from a couple of different areas. Reinhold Friedl and Jean-Luc Guionnet are improvising musicians who are involved in a range of projects. Reinhold is probably better known for his work with the zeitkratzer orchestra who recently published a CD of Lou Reed’ Metal Machine Music using acoustic instruments. Jean-Luc is an extremely well regarded saxophonist and organist working on a number of projects including the free jazz ensemble Hubbub. Yannick Dauby on the other hand is a highly regarded field recordist currently living in Taiwan who specializes in recording frogs and cicadas. However I think it is the local artists that really bring a sophisticated approach to spatialization within Immersion. Cornel Wilzcek, Anthea Caddy and Thembi Soddell have all produced some fine works that demonstrates a very different sensibility to sound and space to the Europeans. As a curator I am interested in promoting both known and emerging artists who are working with innovative ideas around spatial choreography in order to get audiences to think beyond conventional modes of aural experience.
Bob: What role do you believe LA fulfills?
PS: LA showcases the rich variety of ideas and practices that informs sound culture in the broadest sense. This includes a concert program, site-specific works, installations, listening programs and workshops. The festival was started by RMIT Sound students and continues to provide opportunities for young and emerging artists in a way that other festivals fail to do. It is also a festival that takes risks and is driven more by the generation and dissemination of ideas rather than providing entertainment. I think that this curatorial philosophy explains why the festival is so variable from year to year, but audiences seem to be up to the challenge.
check http://www.liquidarchitecture.org.au for program
