Sound Scrips: Proceedings of the inaugural Totally huge New Musical Festival Conference 2005

The Bent Leather Band Ensemble : Children of Grainger

Stuart Favilla et al. — Tue, 29 May 2012 23:10:44 PDT

This paper discusses technical issues confronting the contemporary electronic instrument builder and presents Bent Leather Band's aim to develop playable instruments.

Rice and Celery (Toglen)

Domenico de Clario — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:27:59 PST

Berenice is the name of the last of fifty five imaginary cities that Marco Polo describes to Kublai Khan. These descriptions and further dialogues between Marco and the Khan constitute the substance of Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities". The just in Berenice constitute a secret society, recognizing each other through the pronunciation of certain words (especially commas, parenthesis and the space between things) and through their simple diet of broad beans, zucchini flowers, rice and soup. In recent projects I have been examining the idea that evidence of the existence of a single and independent fixed self cannot seem to be found. Here I will briefly describe a recent two part project at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) in Melbourne, titled "A Second Simplicity" and then contextualise this project within the Calvino story.

Elephants and suffering in dusty corners

Susanna Ferrar — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:00:38 PST

The following non-refereed paper has been compiled by the editors from the audio transcript and notes provided by Susanna Ferrar for her talk delivered to the Inaugural Totally Huge New Music Festival Conference (Perth: 9 Oct. 2005). The original program note to her presentation reads: "I keep talking about this project I'm doing, visiting places where the ashes of my grandparents' children ended up, who were all born and raised in Western Australia. As I proceed, adventures seem to be befalling me. Sometimes it seems more important to hang out the washing or change the cat litter. The level of anxiety is high. I'm not sure I can cope. I am the artist. I am going to talk. I am chipping away all the bits that aren't part of whatever it is that I am creating. I have sound, I have pictures. There are words. I don't know what they will make in the end. It will be personal, subjective, universal, pretentious, daring, weak." Ferra also played the violin as part of her presentation.

I.B.R. Variation 1

Miha Ciglar — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:50:52 PST

In this paper I would like to introduce my recent composition: "I.B.R. Variation 1" (a composition for computer, electrified guitar, mixing board and human body), which is derived from three different projects, - Illusions, Body Mix, Resistance -, fusing three different and already unusual interfaces for musical expression into a powerful new musical instrument. The piece is implemented by employing computers and common sound synthesis/processing techniques in combination with a rather primitive manipulation and misuse of low tech analogue equipment. The main idea was to assign unusual tasks to usual pieces of musical equipment, transforming a mixing board into an oscillator (input connected with output), a guitar into a digital controller and a human body into a mixing board. All parts of the instrument eventually form a complex feedback chain, exposing a mix of original electroacoustic material and feedback oscillations to a continuous (analogue/digital) metamorphosis

Radio Art : A Slovak perspective

Michal Murin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:48:19 PST

January 16, 2000, marked the history of Slovak New Media art and technologies with the first international internet radio art project. Entitled "LENGOW and HEyeRMEarS Meet Radio Artists", it was a live acoustic performance that utilized radio internet broadcast between ORF1 Kunstradio Vienna with its project Arts Birthday 1.000.037,1 Radio Free B92 Beograd, and Tilos Radim Budapest. The performance took place on 16 Jan 2000, from 11 p.m. to midnight in Nové Zámky, Slovakia (Klik Klub). An edited soundtrack of the event was captured on a CD titled "SOUND OFF 1999-2000". On the occasion of the staging of the performance, the following text attempted to summarize the history of radio art in the world, pointing out its increasing possibilities in the age of new technologies.

Surface Noise

Philip Samartzis — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:43:02 PST

This paper seeks to trace the genealogy of surface noise as a tool of musical expression by surveying a range of artistic practices based around the record and turntable that privilege detritus, abrasion, repetition and decay as key compositional devices. The paper begins by examining the acoustic properties of the oldest playable recording (Frank Lambert's talking clock) in order to outline the numerous characteristics and flaws inherent in early models of mechanical reproduction and storage that vigorously conspired to interfere with the listening experience. This is followed by an examination of the way recording technology was converted from a tool for reproduction to one of production to facilitate new methods of composition and performance. It then discusses a broad range of concepts and methodologies forged by sound artists and musicians interested in methods of production and articulation that exploit the constraints and defects of recording technology to afford new modes of listening and aesthetic appreciation.

Modernist and Postmodernist Arts of Noise, Part 2: From the Clifton Hill mob to Chamber Made Opera’s Phobia

Linda Kouvaras — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:41:53 PST

This paper will continue to trace negotiations outlined in Part 1 of the music/noise dichotomy as expressed in modernist and postmodernist works.1 Drawing connections with the trajectory of "glitch" in popular music since the 1970s. The paper will examine a number of key ways in which the music/noise dichotomy has been addressed as a borderline dispute between, for example, the embodied and the disembodied, the scored and the unscored, the accidental and the intentional, sense and nonsense, culture and nature. Two key figures from the highly influential group of sound artists who came together at Melbourne's Clifton Hill Community Centre during the 1970s are Warren Burt and Chris Mann. They collaborated on "Subjective Beats Metaphor" (1983), which plays with biological vocoders and electronic voice manipulation, illuminating constructions such as subjectivity, accent and syntactical meaning. Chamber Made Opera's recent production, "Phobia" (2004), is a startling tribute to Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" and Hollywood noise artists, or sound effects teams, achieving a mesmeric amalgamation of music theatre, performance art and "physical theatre" in which "noises off" mime the disintegration of characters' mental states, sense into nonsense, meaning into materiality.

Modernist and Postmodernist Arts of Noise, Part 1: From the European avant-garde to contemporary Australian Sound Art

David Bennett — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:38:02 PST

The broad aim of the paper that follows is to test the claim of critics such as Miriam Fraser and Steve Connor that the modernist deconstruction of the music/noise dichotomy has entered a distinctively postmodern phase. The article below therefore traces the history and poetics of this dichotomy from the modernist avant-garde to contemporary Australian postmodernist Sound Art, moving from a discussion of the ideas of Russolo, Cage, Boulez and Schaeffer, to a close reading of Ros Bandt's "Stack" (2000- 01). These themes as expressed in contemporary Australian composition are then explored in Part Two.

Sound Art / Mobile Art

Cat Hope — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:36:56 PST

This paper examines the role of sound installation and music composition practices in addressing the relationship between sound and telecommunications devices, in this case the mobile phone. The popularity of mobile phone artworks is rapidly increasing, with handsets readily available, artists excited about sponsorship opportunities, and the general push in electronic arts. This paper focuses primarily on work by Perth mobile phone Sound Art collective, Metaphonica, which explore many issues raised by this art form. "Phonebox" (2005) was a site specific sound installation where phones are called from a remote computer, presenting a synchronized composition featuring sounds created by the artists installed on the handsets as ring tones. This was in turn subverted by visitors to the exhibition location.

Invisible Symmetries: A retrospective of the work of Lindsay Vickery

Jonathan Mustard — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:35:50 PST

The following is a retrospective of the work of Western Australian born composer Lindsay Vickery. The paper examines the composer's diverse output in composed and improvised instrumental and electronic music and multimedia works. A nine digit string of numbers that the composer calls a "cypher", ties together a significant portion of Vickery's output for almost two decades of compositional activity, but the sense in which these works are about something else is palpable in each and every one. Iconic pieces where a serial-like method is an anathema and cypher based pieces all seem to point to a structure the composer refers to as mind-like, often influenced by a back story that injects meaning into the music

Western Electric: A survey of recent Western Australian electronic music

Lindsay Vickery — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:34:45 PST

This paper surveys developments in recent Western Australian electronic music through the work of a number of representative artists in a range of internationally recognised genres. The article follows specific cases of practitioners in the fields of Sound Art (Alan Lamb and Hannah Clemen), live and interactive electronics (Jonathan Mustard and Lindsay Vickery) and noise/lo-fi electronics (Cat Hope and Petro Vouris) and glitch/electronica (Dave Miller and Matt Rösner).

How To Prepare a Piano

Annea Lockwood — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:33:19 PST

My original Piano Transplants (1969-72) were about relishing the shock of displacement: pianos planted in an English garden, sinking in a Texas cattle pond, pianos beached and aflame; observing their slow transformation through natural processing the five year decay. My relationship with the piano did not end with the Piano Transplants, though. I will also discus more recent works stemming from my fascination with the rich array of sounds which can be drawn from every part of the instrument once the keyboard is dethroned.

A “Hidden Centre”: Crossing cultural boundaries and ecstatic transformation

Liza Lim — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:29:58 PST

The following is an edited version of Liza Lim's keynote lecture presented for the Inaugural Totally Huge New Music Festival Conference (Perth: 8 Oct. 2005). It examines cross-cultural aesthetics and ethical questions arising from non-Indigenous Australian composers interacting with Australian Indigenous cultures. The paper begins in a formal and framed way and then moves towards more personal and speculative comments.

Introduction: A New Historicism? Sound, music and ruined pianos.

Cat Hope et al. — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:47:25 PST

One of the highlights of every New Music festival which we attend is the banter that goes on between artists and audiences about what we have experienced together. The Inaugural Totally Huge New Music Festival Conference was a way to formalize these discussions for the 7th Totally Huge New Music Festival of 2005, and it was a privilege to have been able to attend a conference about New Music in the midst of it actually happening. The Conference was opened by the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Communications and Creative Industries, Edith Cowan University, Professor Robyn Quin, and it provided an opportunity for conversation and debate on New Music practice as it is and as it can be to enjoy a gathering of diverse minds and music that provided a mixture of composers, academics, sound artists and performers alike. This collection of papers and artist presentations is a reflection of some of the wood used to stoke the fire that made up the three day Conference. The Festival hosted the first ever Ruined Piano Convergence, which provided a fascinating background to many of the presentations. The Conference was also fortunate to have two exciting keynote speakers, composers Liza Lim (Australia) and Annea Lockwood (USA / New Zealand). In recognition of these interactions between performances, papers and exhibitions, a list of the activities which were mounted as part of the Conference has been included at the end of this volume and, where appropriate, reference has been made to any direct links between these events and the published papers in our introduction below. 1 The Festival itself was a sixteen day exploration of New Music, and Sound Art. It featured hundreds of musicians from Western Australia and around the world, including materials as diverse as orchestral extravaganzas (Children's Voices), sound galleries (You Are Here Entangle), to burning pianos (Lockwood). The program offered a captivating showcase of research and new work in chamber music, electronica, installations, improvisation, radiophonics, multimedia and Sound Art, conducted in both metropolitan and regional Western Australia. In the midst of this, the Inaugural Totally Huge New Music Festival Conference brought together a diverse range of national and international presenters, as well as hosting the launch of Andrew Ford's latest book, In Defence of Classical Music, at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA)

Preface: Sound Scripts: A word from Tura New Music

Tos Mahoney — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:18:12 PST

The Inaugural Totally Huge New Music Festival Conference was a bold initiative by its partner presenters Tura New Music and the Faculty of Communications and Creative Industries, Edith Cowan University, Perth, including the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. In an arts milieu which is increasingly becoming “industrialised” and the dollar the bottom line criteria for success, it is reassuring to have the confirmation that there are those—in fact there is a strong cohort—who are dedicated to delving the depths of the meaning of their own and others’ practice.