Month: November 2022

Hong-Kai Wang is a multidisciplinary artist who works across the fields of performance art, teaching, publishing, and creating exhibitions.

They talked about their process of creating and building a space to build an exhibition in, and the collaborative effort it was to build this space. They talked about the sound they played in this space, which is a combination of both a script of spoken word and field recordings that are heavily based on nature. They read us the script while showing us pictures of the exhibition, the exhibition space looks very industrial, very grey and spaced out, and the pictures were also shot in black and white which adds another layer of this industrial feeling. The script was very hypnotic using lots of repetition of words, “You sing… You sing.. You sing…” this was a really nice way to tell a story. It makes it feel almost dreamlike. This is from their work ‘The Flesh and the Phantom’.

It’s clear from their presentation that they take a lot of inspiration from books, especially books about music and sound and how they might be shown in other cultures. Hong-Kai Wang is from Taiwan and has studied and worked across the globe, so given that experience and what seems like an interest in people, cultures and countries it makes sense this is what some of their work focuses on.

It doesn’t seem Kai Wang associates themselves with sound art explicitly, they seem to work in many other fields which makes it impossible to put a point on what they specifically do. Which made the lecture all the more interesting. Kai – Wang work really relies on people listening and collaboration and open experimentation and rehearsals with people.

Kai-Wang has a beautiful collection of field recordings, they should us a piece called 20 recordings of winds, which was also put in an installation. The recordings were split up into acts recorded from different areas. Act 4 of these field recordings consists of waves, bells and walking on the beach. You can see this is another instance of Kai-Wang being influenced by nature. I really enjoyed how Kai-Wang uses field recordings, in particular wind. The wind recordings were raw but not in a harsh way, it felt very soft and relaxing. Their approach to wind reminds me of David Lynch in the way they use it to their advantage.

They talk about her recordings on Jeju island and how the wind really affected her, and how she can take the recordings, the history of the land, location and themselves and how they can translate it into sound.

www.centreforlondon.org. (n.d.). The sound of cities: noise pollution and why it matters. Available at: https://www.centreforlondon.org/blog/noise-pollution-why-it-matters/.

Tube Noise and vibration short summary of issues raised with … – london . Available at: https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/environment_committee_-_tube_noise_issues_-_summary.pdf

‌William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops. (2014). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjnAE5go9dI.

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). London Underground ‘MIND THE GAP!’ Loud Message Announcement. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAFktjJIT8I

www.tubenoiseactiongroup.com. (n.d.). TubeNoise. [online] Available at: https://www.tubenoiseactiongroup.com

Jonathan Snipes. (n.d.). Jonathan Snipes. [online] Available at: https://jonat8han.bandcamp.com/

en-gb.facebook.com. (n.d.). Sleepless Brixton. [online] Available at: https://en-gb.facebook.com/SleeplessBrix/

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Secret Piece. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYAF5Nm2DnM

‌www.youtube.com. (n.d.). SPLP Deep Listening 1: Deep Listening: Pauline Oliveros and the Sonosphere. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgfgve0quYE.

The difference between hearing and listening | Pauline Oliveros | TEDxIndianapolis. (2015). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QHfOuRrJB8.

SoundCloud. (n.d.). Theo Power | Deaftapes. [online] Available at: https://soundcloud.com/user-506583101.

‌www.youtube.com. (n.d.). 4’33’’. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrlKxV5KWJo

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Williams Mix. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AJzuTldFu4

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Lionel Marchetti – Portrait D’Un Glacier (Alpes, 2173m) (2001) [FULL ALBUM]. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYRuy88plPY

genius.com. (n.d.). ​clipping. – Secret Piece. [online] Available at: https://genius.com/Clipping-secret-piece-lyrics

The Museum of Modern Art. (n.d.). John Cage. 4’33″ (In Proportional Notation). 1952/1953 | MoMA. [online] Available at: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/163616.

Landmark Chambers | Barristers Chambers London. (2020). Disabilities and noise nuisance. [online] Available at: https://www.landmarkchambers.co.uk/disabilities-and-noise-nuisance/ [Accessed 7 Dec. 2022].

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After my finishing my draft of my instructional score I revisited it to see what could be fixed. In my blog where I talk about the first draft I talk about my use of spoken word and poetry, this is still very much the case but in my final script, I included more facts and tried to write it in a poetic way. What I did not like about my original script is that it came across a bit needlessly edgy and less informative about what noise pollution actually is. It came across like I was fear-mongering which is not want I wanted, I still want my piece to be a bit scary as it is a scary subject. As you can see above the eeriness is still intact but padded out with more tasteful facts and information.

I decided during the process of making the audio paper to use text-to-speech for the voice. I came up with this idea by thinking of sampling information videos about noise pollution as the speech but thought while writing the script I could have more creative freedom with what was said in my own writing. The inspiration for using text-to-speech came from hearing informational videos where a very robotic voice is telling you this information. It feels like this technique is used to scare people and dehumanise the video by using a voice that is imitating what a human sounds like. I thought this piece could use text-to-speech to somewhat satirise the fearmongering tactics used by these types of corporations but also tell the facts at the same time. These types of informative videos use information that is extreme to catch your attention, so I thought it could be interesting to use that in the piece. For example, I talk about how illness caused by noise pollution could lead to your death if left untreated, it is true. But is hyperbole, this was inspired by the concept of satirising the fearmongering tactics of those types of videos.

For the effect of the voice, I will be using plug-in called MISHBY (which is an acronym for Maybe I Shouldn’t Have Built You). MISHBY is a destroyed tape machine that specialises in distortion, glitching, detuning and decoding. I don’t want to warp the voice too much but want to use this effect too much but subtly use it to distort the text to speech.

The use of text-to-speech altered the way my script was written, as while I was playing my original script through the text-to-speech, I realised lots of issues with the way the script was written. The way it was structured seemed too short and there was not enough information in the script. My original script was also inconsistent in how it was written, jumping back and forward between spoken word and fact. It felt too sudden and abrupt. All of this made me more aware of how I was going to edit my script and rewrite parts of it.

Here is what the text-to-speech sounded like with no effects, this is what is sounds like after being processed by MISHBY, and Valhalla Supermassive (Reverb).

I also wanted to talk in my script about noise and disability. I work as a carer for young adults with special needs when I am back home. Lots of the young adults I worked with had sensory issues, lots of them to do with sound. We had noise-cancelling headphones for situations where loud noises are present. Sudden exposition to loud noise for a lot of these young adults can make them frightened and can lead to dangerous situations with the young adult. This is something that I personally do not see being written about and want to see more inclusion when it comes to disabilities of all types.

The use of text-to-speech may seem as a cop-out to some, as I do not have to worry about recording my own voice. But that is very much not the case, I have an artistic reason to be using text-to-speech and have provided the context behind why I chose to use it.

This week we visited the Sound Archive held at the British Library. Once we all arrived at the British Museum we were taken to a room with a presentation prepared for us. The presentation took us through recording and sound formats throughout history. From Wax Cylinders to magnetic tape, to minidisc, to digital we were told about the creation of these devices and how they were used. Our presenter had a table full of these sound devices, they had wax cylinders, reel-to-reel tapes, minidiscs and cassette tapes.

Throughout the presentation, he showed us how these devices on the table worked or showed us a piece of equipment that matches what the presentation was showing us at that time. For example, we were shown what a blank unrecorded wax cylinder looks like, and how the grooves would be formed when recorded onto the cylinder.

The presentation went in order of time, so we went from the very first recording device which was the phonautograph, the phonautograph was created in 1857. This device has a cone and a diaphragm, the cone would take in the vibrations and with the differing air pressure would move the stylus and diaphragm of the phonautograph. The soundwaves would be scratched onto paper by the needle, and the paper was coated in soot to make the sound waves readable.

My personal favourite time period was the tape era, which began in 1935. I work a lot with tape, in particular cassettes and tape loops in my own work so this piqued my interest. Our presenter ran through reel-to-reel tape, which is something I have never worked with, and they also had reel-to-reel tape that we could hold at the end of the presentation. We were taught that some of these reel-to-reel tapes were made with different materials, which has caused a lot of these tapes to deteriorate over the years. This is also affected by the conditions you store your tape in. This tape deterioration can be used to an artist’s advantage, with William Basinski doing this with his Disintegration Loops series. In which he records a slowly decaying reel-to-reel loop.

He also talked about cassettes and the invention of the PCM Betamax/VHS which were also on the table. This was really fascinating to see the progression from reel-to-reel tapes in 1935 to having a portable cassette tape that you can listen to in either a stereo sound system or walkman (which were not invented till 1979 by Sony).

After the presentation half of us went down into the archives and the other half stayed upstairs, I stayed upstairs and got to have a more in-detail look at the equipment but I had to leave before I could visit the archive downstairs which is a shame. Being able to actually hold the equipment was an incredible experience. Our presenter let us pick up the equipment and look at it, he was talking us through some of the equipment in more detail and answered any questions we had.

Our presenter walked us through some other sound recordings and showed us some work created by the author William S. Burroughs. Burroughs was a famous author and artist who was famous for his nonlinear, postmodern, and surreal works of writing that talk about a wide array of ideas and subjects, like sexuality and drugs. His work is very polarising and experimental, it also is semi semiautobiographical as he struggled with Heroin addiction for years, this was also during his writing process. During the 1960s Burroughs lived in London moving in and out of hotels and still struggling with his Heroin addiction. He recorded a variety of reel-to-reel experiments which were played for us, these recordings consisted of vocal manipulation and feedback. This led me down a rabbit hole of researching Burroughs as a sound artist and found he had some sound releases under his belt.

One of these works is being curated alongside Genesis P-Orridge and Peter Christopherson of Throbbing Gristle fame. The album Nothing Here Now But The Recordings is compiled of Field Recordings, heavily edited vocal passages and throat recordings which are mixed together in a very jarring and unsettling way by P-Orridge and Christopherson. I wouldn’t have learnt any of this if it weren’t for the presentation so I am very thankful for this trip and all the valuable information I learnt.

Noise Pollution in London is one of the city’s unnoticed dangers, people go about their day-to-day life not realising what the sound they are being exposed to can cause them. Noise pollution affects people in London in many ways, so I am going to break it down into parts.

1. Disadvantaged People

People who are less fortunate than others that live on busy roads surrounded by bus stops, cars, and trains are more likely to be exposed to constant noise at all times of the day. In more wealthy areas of London, the constant noise of traffic and transportation is blocked by trees or by living in well-built apartments, maybe even both. In areas of London where income is much less, greenery such as trees and better-built flats is more of a rarity. So the wall of noise is more likely to affect you. This can lead to stress and anxiety due to being exposed to noise at all times of the day.

2. The London Underground

The London Underground (The Tube) is one of the loudest and most common areas to be exposed to dangerous levels of noise in London. The Jubilee Line, Bakerloo Line, and Victoria Line have been known to reach upwards of 110db on some of their stops, which is 50db higher than what the average human ear should be exposed to without hearing protection. People living above tube lines that run on a night service have recorded it can reach 52db in their flat, 35db being the average for a normal night’s sleep according to the World Health Organisation. This can of course effect your sleep which can be detrimental to your mental health and normal life if not consistent. Even if the night tube was removed there would only be 5 hours of no noise, which is less then the average 8 hours of sleep recommended for people.

For creating this project I had a couple inspirations in particular, in one of my other blogs I wrote extensively about the influence of the Canadian post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and their song ‘The Dead Flag Blues’. So I will not repeat that here. I made a YouTube playlist with some of the pieces that influenced me which you can see here.

I am going to talk about 2 of the works from that playlist that influenced me and this work.

1. Secret Piece – Clipping

Clipping is an experimental hip-hop trio from Los Angles, California. Consisting of Vocalist/Rapper Daveed Diggs, and producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes. The trio experiment with harsh noise, feedback, glitchy drums, and field recordings. Which are then mixed with incredibly detailed 3rd person perspective raps filled with concepts ranging from gang culture, torture, sex, space, being a killer in a horror movie, and more.

The trio released 2 albums based on the concept of horror. Both the albums finish with a field recording piece, on the first record ‘There Exists an Addiction to Blood’ they recreated the famous ‘Burning Piano’ piece composed originally by Annea Lockwood. On their second album ‘Visions Of Bodies Being Burned’ they did their own interpretation of Yoko Ono’s ‘Secret Piece’. Which we are going to be talking about.

Secret Piece was originally composed by Yoko Ono in 1953. How you go about recreating your own version of this is to pick a note that constantly plays throughout the piece. It is then accompanied by the sounds of the woods between 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. during the summer. This a very groundbreaking piece as these types of compositions during the time was very rare and how Ono takes the idea of a score and strips all the traditional elements and makes it more performative is very interesting. This is very reminiscent of John Cage’s scores, who was a big influence on Oko.

This recording was created by Jonathan Snipes, one of the two producers of the group. Jonathan is a very established film composer, sound designer, and field recordist. You can see a lot of this on his bandcamp. The piece has multiple tones played throughout, which were played from most of the features that feature on both records.

The collaborators on Secret Piece are as follows Greg Stuart, Ted Byrnes, Jonathan Borges and Shannon A. Kennedy (Pedestrian Deposit), Casey Anderson, MaryClare Brzytwa, Kirsten Carey, Christopher Fleeger, Hal Rosenfeld, John Snyder, David Rothbaum, Joe Lester, Caleigh Drane, and Kwudi. (The names hyperlinked have the songs they are featured on linked if they do not have a link they only worked on Secret Piece).

Considering there are so many contributors the track does not feel overbearing or messy, it is rather impressive that Jonathan managed to deal with all these different sounds and mix them to a point that flows well. There are numerous instruments creating tones like cellos, guitars, electronics, and drums.

I found this piece quite inspiring as it shows how to mix numerous field recordings, tones, and sounds together. When creating a sound piece primarily made up of field recordings it is very easy for the sound to get muddy. Listening to this track helped me realise how to properly go about piecing together sounds. Throughout the piece, the sounds change, giving the track a continuous breath of fresh air as it does not grow stale by repeating the same sound. For my piece, there are two main sounds, construction/traffic and the London Underground. These sounds are very loud and overwhelming so trying to find a way to mix them all can be difficult. Listening to this piece taught me to be patient and bring sounds in slowly, and not bombard the piece with every sound in that section at once.

2. 4’33 – John Cage

John Cage is a very influential figure in sound arts, though he came from a time where diversity among composers was few and far between, this work did influence a lot of people including myself. This piece is famously just silence… or is it? The intention of the composition is to slowly bring sound into the piece, but with that, the piece starts with silence. For me, it is learning the understanding of silence and its place in sound pieces. If used correctly silence can be louder than the loudest thing in that piece. It is all to do with timing. In the creation of my audio paper, I thought the use of silence could be a powerful way to get my point across. Since I am dealing with the topic of noise pollution, the use of silence could be a good way to show the listener how loud day-to-day London sounds actually are. 4’33 showed me how important the use of silence is, and taught me how to use it responsibly.

https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/14294/1/BMJ_Noise%20pollution%20in%20hospitals_WYNNE_et_al.pdf – Noise Pollution in hospitals. This is a really interesting piece of work talking about noise pollution in hospitals, which informed me a lot about how this affects workplaces, and that it is also not created by construction and transportation.

Noise Pollution is pollution primarily created by transportation (cars, trains, buses) and machinery (construction sites, vehicles). Noise pollution has a wide array of effects on human life, it causes anxiety, stress, and depression. Which can lead to other illnesses affecting you, like circulatory problems and heart problems. Noise pollution can also affect animals too, both on land and in the ocean. High levels of noise pollution can affect their navigation skills which affect how they hunt prey or keep themselves safe. This constant noise also affects animals like birds, that have feeding patterns.

Noise pollution affects people who are disadvantaged and live in areas where houses and apartments are built worse and have less soundproofing. These disadvantaged areas also have less greenery which lets noise come straight through to your house instead of having trees in the way to block it somewhat. Hearing constant noise even when in your house can cause anxiety and stress and an unenjoyable life. Because you can’t escape the constant noise.

Noise pollution is being picked up somewhat by the current Tory government, but overall is still ignored. Noise pollution is much more than an mp installing a noise camera to catch boy racers. This issue will also not be solved by setting curfews on venues like its a plaster, it overall is not doing much. As a country we need better-built and insulated flats for all, not just for people who can afford better-built flats, more greenery, and for car companies to make affordable electric cars that make less noise.

Field recording is the majority of sound in this piece, as all the sound stems from noise in the city. I started thinking about where to record, when to record, and how I should go about it. Below is a list of the places I will like to record. I have gathered them into categories of what noise I would like to record.

Elephant & Castle Roundabout – The Elephant & Castle roundabout is full of noise normally, but since a large construction site has started working, the noise is monolithic. This would be great to record to show how unbearably loud the city can be. Since it is also a roundabout there is no shortage of traffic and blaring noise, so this will be my recording location for the upper ground noise.

London Underground – The London Underground provides us with the most Dissonant, Unnerving, and loud sounds we hear in London. The Underground can sound like a horror movie soundtrack, especially when mixed with a crowded train where you cannot move. The Jubilee, Central, Victoria and Bakerloo lines have been reported to be the loudest lines, exceeding 110db on some occasions. I’ve personally found the Jubilee line, and Bakerloo line to be the loudest in my experience, so I will be recording those lines. I will be recording using a Zoom H5 field recorder, as they are portable and have decent sound quality. I will also be running a contact microphone through the zoom H5, to record the vibrations of the train. These recordings, in particular the contact microphone recordings, could be manipulated in a daw.

This is the first draft of my instructional score, for my instructions I kept it clear but effective. Given the piece is very sound-heavy, with dense field recordings used throughout, and the theme of death. I thought having the listener sitting in darkness would be a good way to immerse them in the experience.

I want the listener to hear the piece in a way that suits them, either through headphones or monitors. Which is the best way to hear it. But I also proposed if the listener chose to listen to the piece they could play it through external devices, like a tape machine. The reason I decided this was to give a more unusual experience for the listener. Since we are so accustomed to hearing sound through traditional ways e.g. speakers, headphones. I thought giving the listener the option to listen through other devices could add another layer of connection and immersion. I chose the idea of the tape machine as since tape adds layers of hiss and warble that I find really works with field recordings and spoken word.

The third and final instruction is to just reflect on your own experiences and personal connections with this concept. Since the piece focuses on London in particular and most if not everyone in our class lives in London, everyone should be able to reflect on this concept of noise in London in some way.

When it comes to the script itself, I took the route of spoken word and poetry mixed with more factual information. One of my main inspirations when it comes to the spoken word is the Canadian post-rock group Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Godspeed You! Black emperors are famous for their use of spoken word, field recordings, long drones, and crescendos. The track that influenced me was their song ‘The Dead Flag Blues’.