soundart

Joseph Kamaru showed us a very interesting lecture despite being a Kenyan musician he spoke a lot about his views on culture and the politics behind protecting this. He urged for the voice of Kenyan music and as a result, has sold half a million records. His inability to embrace his culture and spread this to the westernised world inspired me. I believe this message is so important. Authenticity should be protected in all arts especially sonically.

His message to the world reminded me of a lecture when we talked about authenticity and Disney’s corruption of this.

After watching clips of Disney’s ‘Brother Bear’ we discussed the use of indigenous artists used within the making of the score. With little credit and almost 0 authentic influence from Native American culture, this creates a few controversial issues. 

Despite Brother Bear being a celebrated successful Disney film, the lack of authenticity can not be noticed. In a day and age of ‘cancelling culture,’ we should take the director’s notice of situations like this film. With the use of an African American singer Tina Turner during the main songs, some could argue the irony of this and how once again certain racial groups are singled out and gatekeeped into one. As well as the score being untrue to its story and traditions are shown within the film, it sends little representation of true Native American People. Although theoretically, the score was a huge success I strongly argue that by using authenticity you will only get better results.

A good example of this is Hanz Zimmer’s ‘Mother Africa’ score. Despite the film being Pan- African he blends his artistic twist with a variety of arrangements; using South African choirs alongside multiple traditional south African instruments. 

To me, this speaks volumes of authenticity and paints a better storyline cinematically. However, with Hanz Zimmer being a German writer I don’t believe it is truly authentic without the use of a South African composer.

Makoto Oshiro is a sound artist despite being a sound artist he combines other elements of technology into his performances such as electricity and light. A combination of technology, this showed me advancement in performance in a new exciting and experimental way.

With the development of technology phones are getting smarter every single day: but are we?

People every day stay glued to their phones. Despite most people being aware of how unaware they are of their surroundings when on them, we still stay laminated to the screen. It could be argued that blocking out the world around you will stunt your creative flare. The brain is less inspired and triggered and we are becoming detached from our centrality to the floating rock we live on. 

However, in juxtaposition to this, there are tones of software that may inspire us but just in different ways. Apps such as Spotify and Tim Tok’s algorithms show constant new things. From this, our brains are continuously triggered and taught. Can it be highlighted that this constant rush of life and technological culture is forcing our brains to come up with fresh ideas? We are being shown things we may never have been shown before which can conclude in wider creative thinking. However, developments such as the Metaverse and NFT are early signs of our creativity leaving this world physically and being created somewhere else. This is a dangerous process where our creative results are also ending up pumped into technology. 

Despite technology not entirely stumping creative thinking, I do believe it’s vital that we as humans find a balance; we must be careful that everything we think say or do doesn’t end up entirely engulfed by technology.

Samson Young vs Mark Fisher: cancellation of the future

Samson young showed us some great examples of how he incorporates huge installations to partner with his sonic work; he has an ability to combine political attributes with futuristic ideas blew my mind. His ‘Utopia Trilogy #3: Houses of Tomorrow (feat. Michael Schiefel)’ (2019) show to me a current movement of experimental work.

In juxtaposition to this when reading about Mark Fisher and his ideas on the cancellation of the future I felt the urge to argue examples such as Young and his work.

“The slow cancellation of the future has been accompanied by a deflation of expectations” – Mark Fisher 

Mark Fisher’s theory of cancelled sonic futurism tries to portray a light where music will no longer improve. His arguments comparing The Beatles and other musicians who were seen ‘before their time’ are prominent throughout his interview. It can be said that during the rush of change in 1971, music did take a swerve in advancements; synthesisers being invented, polyphonic sound systems and endless tape loops. However, despite the rush of technology, I believe strongly that this was only relevant to the westernised world. America and England were facing the wave of the Civil Rights movement. The hippy movement was upon them; racial attitudes were beginning to change, and protestors were standing up to war… I believe that although Fisher has a point in his comparisons it has to be noted that socially the Western world was changing causing inevitable developments within pop culture. 

It’s important to argue that Fisher is a white straight male who grew up in this era and geographical location. His arguments stay biased to what he knows. I see his arguments as very one-sided and almost uneducated. Samson Youn is a Chinese citizen who in the modern day is producing work based on the political governing of Hong Kong. With his use of installed materials and sculptures, his creativity is beyond anything in the past. Changes within music have taken place all around the world and still are every single day. Racial groups, different genders, cultures and other sexualities have created new sounds and communities all over the planet. Just because Fisher’s genre has had a halt in differences that does not mean it can be said for the entire world’s sonic movements.

When listening to Far Bradley’s lecture she talked a lot about embracing her environment and surroundings to create experimental music. The way she spoke about using space and public surroundings she inspired me to look into the idea of Sonic Meditation.

I took some time to read up about Pauline Olivero and her sonic inspiration after watching a Vietnam War Protestor kill himself. She began her career as a pioneer for electronic music during the 60s and 70s. After witnessing such a brutal and horrifying turn of events she felt the urge to isolate herself and found no impulses to play music. As humans, this is an instinct to hide and protect one’s self against fear or pain.

After a year of silent retreat in 1971, she published a series of experimental works named ‘Self Meditation’. Her work was heavily based on the centre of her physical being and body movement. She began Thai Chi lessons where she found a love for spatial and body. I found this extremely beautiful as it suggested to me a sense of alertness towards a relationship with one’s soul. Centrality and awareness are important parts of overcoming emotions which we face. By facing and understanding how we feel and move we can overcome and build bonds within ourselves. We will find ways to react to our turmoils however we want. Pauline’s work reflects this to me and shows me a true sense of self-understanding. By projecting her newfound perspective centred around her body she was able to compose what sonically became her meditation and road to self-awareness.

Although not everyone makes music and composes sound, I do believe that sonically we can meditate every single day. Attaching yourself and your body to music or sound that we hear in our daily life; allows a pathway for the brain to understand what pressures we have on our soul. Using and connecting to sounds around us connects our self-being and will aid us in conquering everyday mediation. 

Hannah Kemp-Welch spoke and mentioned the power of silence in her lecture. Claiming that despite the fact we work with the sound we can also embrace silence in our work to create the true effect. I wanted to read into this and maybe experiment, especially when including other mediums such as screens.

After the discovery of sound on screen in the 1920s, ‘The Jazz Singer’ – 1927 became the first movie to premiere with additional sound. It can be noticed that this was a monumental step for cinema one to which most people would never go back. Despite music and sound is such a vital part of cinema and television can it be said that silent movies still have the same effect? 

Silence movies back in the day were as much of a success as they were before cinema added sound. As humans, we are now conditioned toward expecting movies to have a dazzling score… For example, if someone plays the film with the volume muted no one would fight the urge to turn it up. However, I strongly argue that silence can be just as powerful. Intrigued by this I researched several different modern silent movies to see if this old fashioned way of creating film still existed. Although despite many google searches I was shocked to find that all modern silent films had adopted old fashioned aesthetics such as the time in which it was set, filters, cameras and storylines. Examples such as Brand Upon the Brain! ( 2006) and Return to Babylon (2013) all fit into one certain style. All films were made to look as if they came out before the invention of sound. Is this because we have made silent movies a cliché and habituated ourselves into thinking that modern styled film can not be silent. 

If I worked in sound for the screen I would one day like to experiment with silence and use it as a powerful technique rather than an approach for 1920s cinema.

Sharon Gal spoke about the importance of architecture and the effects it can have on your performance. Space is a crucial part of making recordings and performances. She spoke about using space as a friend and incorporating your surroundings into your performance. This reminded me of a great example of work that spoke to me when using spaciality in a unique way.

After watching Sky’s critically acclaimed series ‘Chernobyl’ I was so deeply moved by Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score and sounds played throughout. As I later researched her process I began to r3spect what I was hearing on another level. The sound was built on a series of field recordings captured at a power plant in Lithuania where the series was filmed. In an interview, Hildur said “The radiation was going to be connected to the space with actual sounds and the human side, which was the reason for all of this happening in the first place, [evoked] human error, loss, and grief. As I read the script, these feelings were raw to me. And the best way for me to access these emotions personally was to use my voice for the choir parts.”

To me, it amazes me how despite nuclear energy physically being so silent when in the air the sounds she produced in the power plant held such a dark story towards the nuclear forces that loomed within Chornobyl and Russia at the time. 

Despite the fact I have made field recordings in the past and incorporated them into a script I hope to copy Hildur’s technique and instead of just recording what’s around me; take my sounds to produce there and use the space/ acoustics to my true advantage. 

Spoken Word landed on its feet in the late 1990s after the Postmodern Art Movement. I decided to use this in my work as I chose a contemporary theme which I believe fitted the late 20th century aesthetic of spoken word within the song. 

Despite this, I chose this technique as I wanted my art piece to be as immersive as possible. The work itself is named ‘A Party At 10 Downing Street’ and I wanted this to reach out to the listener as if they were truly there. I decided to use sections of Boris Johnson speaking in a spoken word aesthetic. Despite it having a dramatic effect when alongside the music it also made the piece clearer about what it was aiming to say. The spoken word worked well as it becomes almost a mockery of the prime minister and compliments the music that goes alongside this. His persona and seriousness and his job title amplify to the world juxtapose how I have portrayed him in this piece by manipulating what he said and pairing this with comical sound effects. 

Although this has been the first time using spoken word within my work I hope to use it again as I believe it allows another value to sound work and allows an extra avenue for the reader to connect to the piece.