MESH
Earwitness: Excursions in Sound

A multitude of Australian and international sound artists will participate in this unique project. Utilising a variety of methods to produce sound - from interactive computer-based works to solar powered sound installations-they will question the ways in which audiences encounter and respond to sound, and re-examine the role of the aural in contemporary arts practice .

Curator Sonia Leber expIains the background to Earwitness and describes what audiences can expect to hear during this excursion.

With the proliferation of interdisciplinary art, the nervous system of contemporary arts practice is becoming increasingly complex. Many artists no longer anchor themselves to fixed, specifically designated areas of activity. The categorisation of their work becomes increasingly difficult, as do descriptions of their practices.

This must surely be a healthy situation, in which cultural conditions permit fluidity, lines of divergence, the mapping of expanded territories of practice. Artists can be experimental in the broadest sense, selectively and spontaneously drawing on all their skills and utilising all media, resources, technologies and processes.

The propagation of sound art within the domain of contemporary culture is shaped by this process of inclusion rather than exclusion. As such, sound art practice is resistant to reductive delineations. It is characterised by a diversity of approaches resulting in works as varied as the media and methods of the individual practitioners.

With Earwitness, the participants are drawn from a variety of fields with exploration in sound featuring amongst their main activities. Many are active in new music composition and performance, others are performance artists working in sound. Some are multimedia artists working in installation, others are makers of sound sculpture. A few would describe themselves as all of the above.

Interestingly enough, the term 'sound art' (like the term 'intermedia art') has many possible applications in contemporary cultural practice. The very immateriality of sound itself and the many ways it can be transmitted and heard allows the sound artist to penetrate a diversity of sites: the gallery, the museum, the concert hall, the performance space, the city, the street, the suburb, the public site and radio, film, and electronic media. It can be encountered in the private space of the home through radio, CD and tape-recorded works, and increasingly through new forms of communication such as computer interactives and the internet.

That sound can be produced in so many ways makes for an extremely fertile area of activity. Earwitness includes the computer-manipulated electro-acoustics of Steve Adam, Rodney Berry's solar panels powering the fans of a 'sun/sound dial', and Joyce Hinterding's self-built electrostatic speakers which employ 8,000 volts of electricity to create an 'acoustic architecture.' Ernie Althoff invents new uses for the record player with a row of turntables providing the mechanical motion for his sound sculpture/installation.

In performance, Herb Jercher will hit golf balls, crack whips, bounce basket balls and fire bullets at a guitar; Simon Crosbie's work involves 104 participants creating 'mass sounds' at the Old Melbourne Gaol, and Carolyn Connors will explore the power of her voice to effect change in physical objects. For the audience, pleasure is derived from encountering the processes involved in the creation of each work.

Although Melbourne has a long history of sound art practice and a vital artist-driven new music culture which accommodates a great deal of this activity, events focusing on sound art are rare. Earwitness will provide a unique chance to experience a range of contemporary Australian sound art in installation and performance. The Contemporary Music Events Company is pleased to be presenting Earwitness in association with experimenta, a significant forum for the presentation of events and the discussion of ideas in intermedia art.

Since the first experimenta in 1988, it has evolved from a festival of film screenings and forums to include a substantial amount of performance and installation work in which the use of time-based media such as film, video, computer generated images and sound are integral to the work. The inclusion of sound art activity in 1994 (and the association with CMEC) is a welcome broadening of experimenta's artistic parameters to include an under-represented area of the time-based arts.

This reflects and contributes to a growing interest in sound art worldwide, which includes regular participation by Australian sound artists in events such as Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria), International Symposium on Electronic Art (Sydney, 1992; Helsinki, 1994), SoundWatch (Auckland), SoundCulture (Sydney, 1991; Tokyo, 1993) and Australian Sound Art Meridian at Xebec Hall (Kobe, Japan).

For audiences familiar with film and video art, the inclusion of sound art in experimenta needs little explanation. It has long been argued that film and video, having the capacity to simultaneously communicate in image and sound, can provide a link between traditional practices in the visual arts and music. In this respect they are technologies which readily accommodate the visionary ideal of synaesthesia, or a coming together of all arts. Yet the traditional breakdown of labour in filmmaking encourages a disjointed approach to production, setting up processes which encourage the isolation of the two fields.

It is this cognitive and perceptual division which the video artists of the 1960s anticipated the medium of video would help overcome. It is no coincidence that many of the first video artists came from a background in sound and were directly and indirectly influenced by the new music and writings of John Cage. Nam June Paik, a student of John Cage and a key figure in Fluxus, was one of the early video art practitioners who seized on the potential of this new technology to create 'total works of art' which could transmit both to the eye and the ear. His work TV Cello (1971), a sculptural object consisting of three modified TV sets encased in perspex, was a witty work which used a musical metaphor for mass communication, whilst redefining a classical musical instrument through video. With Participation 7V (1969) the images are created by the audience speaking into microphones connected to a TV monitor. Through such works, early video art was perceived as a medium in which sound would, potentially, be integral to the production and transmission of ideas.

But to what extent does this still prevail? The words 'video' and 'film' are so often interchangeable with the idea of the 'video image' and 'film image', and a major source of funding for artists working in film and video comes from a division of the Australian Film Commission called New Image Research. Moreover, in today's mainstream media we continue to be bombarded by examples of film and video which relegate sound to the position of accompaniment, and the potential of sound, with its multiplicity of meanings and associations, is not fully explored. It seems that the only real potential for a synaesthetic approach to production in film and video still lies in the hands of experimental artists.

Earwitness is not aimed at defining sound art as an exclusive discipline, but at showcasing a diversity of activity that falls under the banner of sound art. Nor is it intended to be a truly broad-ranging survey of current sound art practice, in which case it would be necessary to include works for tape and sound art broadcast on radio. Its aim is to stimulate an awareness of the possibilities for the communication of ideas in sound by presenting the work of sound artists in installation and performance, with several excursions out of the gallery and performance space into public sites.

In this way, I hope that Earwitness presents the audience of experimenta with a rich encounter where they can partake of and participate in the cross fertilisation and conflation of ideas in sound, film, video, installation and performance.

And accompanying the program....

The art of sound penetrates many sites within the domain of contemporary culture. Interdisciplinary in nature, it is a fertile area of activiry that connects a diversity of practices. It is interesting to consider the work of artists working in sound at a time when our cultural institutions are undergoing change in response to the interdisciplinary nature of art and life.

From the gallery to the performance space, from the public to the private domain, from radio, film and video to interactive technologies - and the spaces in between - artists working in sound are engaged in a ter ritorial nomadism, carving out a massive nerwork of activity.

Rather rhan making the position of the sound artist tenuous, these cultural conditions create a robust and vigorous environment. Each new territory provides an opportuniry for new approaches to production and new modes for the transmission of ideas. Artists can be experimental in the broadest sense, drawing on all their skills and utilising all media, resources, technologies and processes.

If an art of sound were to be defined through practice, the fluid conditions for the production of work would make it a difficult area to delineate. It is charaterised by a diversity of approaches resulting in works as varied as the media and methods of the individual practition ers. The practitioners work anywhere in or between the areas of new music composition and performance, sound work for tape and radio, performance art, multi media installation and sound sculpture.

This willing vagrancy, this state of perpetual displacement which so liberates the practitioner provides a challenge for the curator The selection of works in Earwitness reflects this diversity of activity. While it is not a broad ranging survey as it does not indude radio phonic and tape works, Earwitness aims to stimulate an awareness of the possibilities for the communication of ideas in sound. It presents the work of sound artists in installation and performance, with several excursions out of the gallery and performance space into public sites. In most instances, the works presented are new works, many of them having been developed for a particular performance site or placement in the gallery.

The galleries will be activated by a range of sound installations: from the dynamic listening experience of Warren Burt's 'Dense Room' and Joyce Hinterding's 'Cloud', to Graeme Davis' sound sculptures driven by wind and water in the garden at ACCA; from Margaret Trail's dense narratives to the witty, exclamatory statement of Derek Kreckler's 'BOO!'. from the interactive playable sculpture of 'Squeezebox' to Joan Brassil's delicate 'audio scroll' which forms part of her 'Body Weather Erosions' installation. In 'Transpoes', Sherre DeLys and Joan Grounds use the tropical glasshouse as a site for the transplantation of musical artforms.

In performance work, the artists utilise a variety of approaches to the production of sound and present new models for its transmission to an audience. Simon Crosbie's work for the Old Melbourne Gaol involves 104 participants who use the stairs, cells and doors to generate 'mass' sounds in an examination of the psychological effects of confinement. In 'Working Hypothesis', Chris Mann and The Impediments examine a new model for information flow by presenting simultaneous performances at three sites at the Old Melbourne Observatory. Ikue Mori and David Warson use the familiar instrumentation of programmable drum machines and guitar to explore a multiplicity of meanings and associations in sound.

A special program is devoted to the body as a site for explorations in sound. Anna Sabiel's 'Tensile ii' and Stelarc's 'Split Body: Voltage-in/Voltage-out' present an interesting comparison of sound produaion through movement. The voice undergoes radical transformation in Steve Adam's 'Chromophony', and is the primary medium in Amanda Stewart's (i x it)2. In 'Stealth Cycle', Herb Jercher investigates the sense of hearing in a range of sporting and hunting activities.

The works presented in Earwitness will contribute a rich diversity of ideas and will undermine any lingering notions that art is a silent practice. © Sonia Leber is a filmmaker and independent curator in sound, installation and performance. She currently lectures in video production at RMIT.

MESH#4 Spring, 1995. MESH film/video/media/art is the journal of Experimenta Media Arts

Earwitness Installation
Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
Rodney Berry
(I Heard) YOUR FOOTSTEPS

The work consists of a number of plastic 'organ pipes' driven by small electric fans powered by solar panels. The panels are positioned so that different combinations of pipes will sound at different times as the sun moves across the sky punctuated by passing clouds. I view it as a kind of 'qualitative clock' relating to the ways we perceive the qualities of the world from moment to moment. The sun's energy is translated into vibrating columns of air in slow dialogue with the shifting light and shadows of the space. (Rodney Berry)

Warren Burt
DENSE ROOM

'Dense Room' uses images made with a Silicon Graphics computer using Softimage software and sounds made using a Roland Sound Canvas synthesiser controlled by the drum machine program Drummer. I wanted to use these machines and software in ways other than their intended applications in the commercial animation and music industries, making an installation which combined elements of control and chaos, specification and accident, randomness and precision.

Using Softimage, an image would be drawn by hand, then randomised - considerably changing its shape. I would then alter the image further using different randomisation processes and animation tech niques. The resulting details and qualities would continual ly surprise me with their unpredictability. The sound similarly combines elements of specification and randomness using a number of non standard piano tunings - every equal tempered scale from five notes per octave through to 43 notes per octave. Approximately 300 measures of music were composed in the different tuning systems, with different rhythms, melodies and chords which were then distributed, using yet another random system, onto three cassette tapes which play continuously using auto-reverse tape players.

Both the images and the sounds are distributed randomly around the space, in a way that hopefully allows both a sense of constant variety and a thematic unity, within a fairly dense visual and sonic texture. (Warren Burt)

Graeme Davis
SOUND GARDEN

Sound Garden produces sounds generated from wind and water. The concerns are how to harness these energies and articulate gestures to generate sound. I am interested in the process of listening to these sounds in relation to the sounds of the surrounding environment.

Since the early 1970s I have been practising in the fields of sculpture, performance, installation, experimental music-making and experimental musical instrument mak ing. These practices have combined to produce varying statements in the area of sound sculptures, sound performances and installations. My practice has been that of experimental investigation which may lead to as many failures as successes. The concerns of the work may vary from conceptual, formal, political, sexual, environmental, the ordinary or none of the above. For me there has been no continuity from one project to the next other than an attitude of investigation. With this I look to my next challenge. (Graeme Davis)

Joyce Hinterding
CLOUD

Concerned with sonic imaging, 'Cloud' explores the possibility for sounds to be construed spatially as a secondary architecture. A custom built electrostatic speaker system is used to play back recordings of imaging data transmitted from the polar orbiting satellites along with recordings made in the studio in Vaucluse. Cloud is an attempt to manifest sound shapes or rather zones of fidelity within the gallery space through the use of sounds that are used to produce images. (Joyce Hinterding)

Derek Kreckler
HOW TO DISCIPLINE A TREE and BOO!

I am surrounded by a reality that I constantly deny and deliberately ignore as if not recognised. Sometimes I think I am mad. A nagging background undeniable when the body allows recognition. An environmental frenzy, a cacophony of jagged and distorted forms. Shut out for survival. I cannot account for the minutiae of change. For me, history re-emerges unrecognised as familiarity in a different guise. Should I address each day with a smile? What I call ART keeps me in breath, allows me some time to reflect on what I see. For survival, I create a space that momentarily saves me from myself, from you, from the noises of life. I feel as if I have done something worthwhile. You may judge as you wish, enjoy if you can. I continue believing that I create something of worth that informs me for the future, tells me it's all ok, albeit briefly. My work for this exhibition deals with the strained relationship I have with communication and perception. (Derek Kreckler)

Margaret Trail
THE SCHWARZENEGGER CYCLE

In 'The Schwarzenegger Cycle', I propose my 'self' as a construct, living in the interstices between family, lovers, aliens, celebrities, countries, plants and machines. All of us engaged in a restless charting of identity, speaking languages of genre and imperialism, negotiating disease and drugs, sex, love and loss.

I am interested in narratives which are deep as well as wide, in which tiny whole world haiku link to form a larger story, so the listener might travel any number of imaginary paths in relation to the text. (Margaret Trail)

 
The Glasshouse, Royal Botanical Gardens<
Sherre DeLys + Joan Grounds
TRANSPOES

Transpoes has been assisted by the Australia Council and the City of Melbourne.

Ether Ohnetitel
Ernie Althoff
TAKE THE AAA TRAIN

'Take the AAA Train' arose from my notions of the site specific incorporating both the structure and the sound of the piece. For some time I've wanted to use sounds emanat ing from a wooden floor. Designing the rotating apparatus with which to generate this and arranging the units in a linear fashion, the locomotive engine images/metaphors quickly fell into place. The counterweighted wheels and connecting rods, the modular aspect of carriages, tunnels and cuttings, the winding of tracks through a landscape, level crossings, boom gates and signage, even the 'historic' aspects of steam and smoke coming in through an open carriage window - all these features were easily used to inspire form and function in the work.

Compositionally, the piece also evokes railway imagery with bell-like tones, rhythmic clacking and low rumbles. Ten aluminium tube-chimes are suspended to swing and be struck by rotating beaters, creating an endlessly chang ing chance-determined ten pitch 'melody', underpinned by five phasing pairs of wood block clacks and the rumble of beaters dragged over exposed floorboards. Does all this railway reference make the piece a 'blues'? (Ernie Althoff)

Joan Brassil
BODY WEATHER EROSIONS

WHERE ICE-AGE AND
DUNES
BREATHE AND PULSE
THROUGH OUR DREAMS

A CARBON ENIGMA
IN ASHEN-EYED
CONSCIOUSNESS

This work is not a record of a performance but an excursion into transferences.

Body Weather performers at Lake Mungo were smeared with ash as a link between the inert dunes and life. For the sound, by using a skin drum as a palette, small heaps of sand and ash were traced across the surface by use of a feather, for a continuous drawing of the dunes and ero sions, becoming a sonic scroll. Expanded by three close microphones and headphones together with sounds of Mungo winds and breath, this work deals with transferences within the erosions of the dunes and the vulnerability of the human condition. In visual terms there are transferences from one consciousness to another, to the eventual human shadow on the earth to landform. (Joan Brassil)

Andree Greenwell
MOTHER TONGUE

'Mother Tongue' uses 12 sound portraits made from the voices of women of both sides of my family in an examination of the inheritance, learning and performance of language.

In 1982 I began to interview and record the women in my family as an investigation of how speech habits are relearned and modified according to geographic, envi ronmental, generational and social influences. These recordings became the basis of 'Mother Tongue', which explores the learning and inheritance of language expression and the (personal) performance of language as a music. The 12 aural portraits are compiled so that the voices of the women on my mother's side of the family are heard in approximate alternation with the women on my father's side. (Andree Greenwell)

lain Mott: concept and music
Marc Raszewski: design
Tim Barrass: animation
SQUEEZEBOX

Squeezebox is a sound and video sculpture exploring interaction and transformation. Kinetic sculpture and interactive sound and graphics are combined to deliver a broad expression of move ment, time and space. The interactive, pan-sensory nature of the sculpture is mirrored in its collaborative, multidisciplinary construction. The participant completes this collaboration, closing the loop from sculpture to machine to expression. In this sense, the participant becomes part of the artform.

The grasping 'hands' of Squeezebox invite interaction, drawing the participant into the centre of activity. Manipulation of the 'hands' produces sympathetic movements of pistons within the sculpture, which in turn initiate a cascade of aural and visual responses from the sculpture's hidden computer structure. Organic resonances are reinforced by the plasticity of the visual shape and the spatial/timbral manipulation of sound. (lain Mott)