Part of the that conference is a counter)induction concert of sonicizations and musical works involving computation, models of physical systems and spatialization on Saturday, 12 June at the Jack Morton Auditorium on the GW campus. 8 pm. Be there.
The notes below the break are an adaption of my comments for the conference proceedings; Evan and I will be posting a bit more as things go; I figured I'd post this, since some of the questions that these works and indeed the whole project of sonification and spatialization bring up abut the ontological and semiotic terrain of Bigmouths to a surprising degree. Look for more information soon.
~Douglas
“We necessarily express ourselves by means of words and we usually think in terms of space. That is to say, language requires us to establish between our ideas the same sharp and precise distinctions, the same discontinuity, as between material objects. This assimilation of thought to things is useful in practical life and necessary in most of the sciences. But it may be asked whether the insurmountable difficulties presented by philosophical problems do not arise from placing side by side in space phenomena which do not occupy space, and whether, but merely getting rid of the clumsy symbols round which we are fighting, we might not bring the fight to an end.”
- Henri Bergson
Time and Free Will, authors preface
"Music is based on temporal succession and requires alertness of memory. Consequently music is a chronologic art, as painting is a spatial art.”
– Igor Stravinsky
Poetics of Music
Displacements 1b is the first in a series of works which will use spatialization to interrogate the role of embodiment in musical performance. The term embodiment refers to the manner in which the performer’s physical self is the source of the sonic component of music, the spatial and temporal location of musical action and decision-making, and (in many contexts and for many people), the figure or emblem of music itself. The work involves the projection (or diffusion) of the live sound of the performers through an array of speakers, and the movement of performers on the stage or in the performance space. These devices are used to literally alienate the performance from the performer, and in doing so call attention to these basic elements of the grammar of performance.
In Displacements 1b music (or perhaps musicking itself) is spatialized along two different axes, with the performers themselves moving and secondary sources (or 'ghosts') of the audio signals of the instruments also moving through an emitter array and audio spatialization software. These traces or ghost sources perform alongside the physically present ensemble while at the same moment setting themselves apart, in that they exist without a concrete association with a perceived physical source. This is achieved in real-time via VRSonic's Vibestation™, with an iPhone application triggering the movement of sources along predefined splines.
I have described this ghosting as an alienation of sound and performer. I use the term 'alienation' here carefully and positively, in that is it only through such an alienation from our assumptions about seemingly common place actions like musical performance that we can remind our selves of the basic elements of the grammar of performance which have been effaced or downplayed. The mediation of technology enables this physical dislocation. My goal in the work is to decouple and recouple the sound of the performers with the performers’ location, and by doing so to remind the listener of the ontological group effort that is musicking. This dislocation can and perhaps should be thought of as a kind of disembodiment. The term embodiment refers to the manner in which the performer’s physical self is the source of the sonic component of music, the spatial and temporal location of musical action and decision-making, and (in many contexts and for many people), the figure or emblem of music itself. In the tradition of Western art music, there is a tendency to minimize the body, be it through standardized concert attire, the suppression of dance responses, or the penetration of acousmatic projection and the mechanical, electronic and digital sound files into quotidian life. We can lose sight of the body, which is present at the start of the musical chain. Ironically, though technology that spatializes and disembodies music is omnipresent (and which disembodies our experience of music every day), finding technology that can do this with the subtlety and nuance expected of music is rather hard to do.
The de-situating and re-situation of sonic production in the body of the performers through the use of spatializing technology forces the fact of human agency in forgetting that music is a product of human action and agency. We can forget music is fundamentally humanistic in the abstract and interpersonal in practice. Much in our world makes us behave as if and perhaps feel that music objectified, commodified and generic, when at its best, most nuanced, it is distinct, personal and human.