d.maps: lab 4 musique

d.Maps: Design Cultural Maps Lab [email protected]

d.Maps: Design Cultural MapsFall 2009

Agenda


Project 2 Results

• I tried…

• I learned…

• I felt


Testing

• Ask: What are you thinking? Why?• Reflect: What is their first impression? What’s working?• Ask: How would you do [x] task…? (repeat)• Reflect: What new errors, problems, questions have

emerged?• Ask: How would you change [x] task…?(repeat)• Reflect: What unexpected things are happening?

Musique concrète

Mapping the Sound of Space


Musique concrète - beginnings

• Pierre Schaeffer (1910-1995)

• Forbidden from studying music, got a job at a radio station as an engineer.

• The phonogene – variable speed playback…


Studio d’essai – Experimental Studio

• Tape manipulation, electronic music controllers, spacialized playback…

•Étude aux Chemains de Fer (1942)


1942 & Étude aux Chemins de Fer

• Study with Railroads (lit. Study with the Ways of Iron)

• Deconstructivism, Derrida. Taken out of physical/spatial context, sound can be read as “text,” and new meaning (or no meaning) can be ascribed to it.


Music in Modernity / Inspiration• Where does inspiration come from?

• Romantic – from the divine, from nature. Artist as conduit.

• Modern – from the world, the intellect. Artist as navigator.

• Post-Modern – from art. Artist as synthesizer.


How does this relate to mapping?

Layers : Routing : Time


Layers

• Alvin Lucier –

I Am Sitting In A Room

• Sitting in a room, Lucier records his speaking voice.

• This recording is played back in the room and recorded again and again…

• …the resonant frequencies and reverb profile of the room render the sounds unrecognizable.

• Recursion!

• Layering filters – layering sounds is widespread in contemporary music.


Routing

• Christina Kubisch

Electronic Walks (2003)

• Created special headphones which convert ambient electromagnetic fields to sound.

• Designed walks through electromagnetically active areas.

• “The perception of everyday reality changes when one listens to the electrical fields; what is accustomed appears in a different context. Nothing looks the way it sounds. And nothing sounds the way it looks.”


Time

• William Basinski -Disintigration Loops (2003)

• Old magnetic tape degrades over time.

• Playing tape back scrapes off information encoded in ferrite…

• He recorded the sounds of the tape being played on a continuous loop, as it disintegrated into white noise.

• PS: this happened during 9/11…musique concrète as soundtrack to disaster?


Aleatoric music

• Music composed using elements of chance…

• John Cage – used I Ching, coin toss (Music of Changes)

• 4’33”…


“I have nothing to sayand I am saying itand that is poetryas I needed it”

-John Cage


… so where does inspiration come from?


Some more contemporary musique

concrète • Stephen Wilkinson (Bibio) -

London Planes (2004) - compare to Etude aux Chemins de Fer…

• Nick Zammuto + Paul de Jong (The Books) -Enjoy Your Worries, You May Never Have Them Again...Read, Eat, Sleep (2002)


Reeling it in…

• How can layering change the qualities of component layers? How do overlapping entities interact?

• How can we combine temporal events with spatial entities?

• How can we reveal hidden information? (electronic walks, etc)

• Can we utilize aleatoric techniques in our design process?


References• Slide 2:

(Photo: Serge Lido): home.swipnet.se/sonoloco19/grm/schaefferop.jpg

P.Schaeffer~childhood: "Pierre Schaeffer & Pierre Henry: Pioneers in Sampling". Unknown author (reproduction via Diliberto, John 2005: Electronic Musician) 1986: Electronic Musician. http://emusician.com/em_spotlight/Pioneers_Sampling/. Retrieved September 30 2009.

• Slide 3:

http://turbulence.org/networked_music_review/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/schaeffer_260x257.jpg• Slide 4:

battle of midway: http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/g410000/g414423.jpg (Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.)

train: http://www.modia.org/poeme/auschwitz/train.jpg• Slide 7:

Alivin Lucier : http://www.diapasongallery.org/jpeg/lucier.jpg• Slide 8:

Christina Kubisch : http://www.christinakubisch.de/english/klangundlicht_frs.htm

http://www.digicult.it/digimag/article.asp?id=1492• sllde 9:

William Basinski : http://i40.tinypic.com/1jn9te.jpg

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/577-the-disintegration-loops-i-iv/• Slide 10:

John Cage: http://interglacial.com/~sburke/stuff/cage_433.html


Challenge

Design a EMF sound map in 1 hour


POV

Tess La is a first year physics student learning about electromagnetic fields. She wants to explore EMF disturbances in her neighborhood


Transition


Debrief

• I like

• I wish

• How to


Credits

• Material adapted from dschool.stanford.edu

• Special thanks to Geoff Morris for adaptation of Christina Kubisch’s Electrical Walk project

d.maps: lab 4 musique

Documents

aleatoric music music

contemporary music

electronic musician

sounds unrecognizable

coin toss music of changes

fer study

pierre schaeffer pierre

electrical fields