- Outer space
I’m interested in how the sound I produce on my instrument reacts with the room, how the placement of the speaker(s) in the room can shape the room in a way that is interesting to relate to as a listener or a performer, and how decentralising a room with multiple speaker arrays or an omni-directional speaker setup might make an audience experience the music in a different way and relate to me as a performer in a different way.
This is also a conscious step away from the classic scenario of the artist on an elevated stage and the sound from the stage being amplied through a stereo speaker front that is powerful enough to bypass or circumnavigate any undesired frequencies the room itself might have inherently. My interest lies in engaging the space I'm performing in through sound, not controlling it. Playing along with and reacting to the rooms inherent acoustics, as well as going against them, embracing and engaging with the unique acoustic quality of the space.
It has been an inspiration for me to think about how architecture is connected to sound and music, and I have been researching artists and composers who have been working with merging the two. One historic event I would have liked to attend and experience was the famed Philips Pavillon at the World Fair in 1958, a space designed by architect Le Corbusier and composer Ian Xenakis to combine architecture, film, light and music into a total experience, featuring a space with 425 speakers set into the walls of the building, by which Edgar Varese’s Poème électronique was spatialized by sound projectionists using telephone dials. Even trying to imagine the sensory impact is an amazing experience to me. Another inspiration is Austrian artist Bernard Leitner’s explorations with ways in which space can be experienced acoustically, through his work with what the principles he has dubbed Sound Architecture and Sound Space Sculptures.
I started working with a six-way monophonic omni directional speaker, which was originally built to be used by acoustic engineers to help measure the acoustic properties of a room. It is designed to send out an even sine wave in all directions, in order for the engineer to be able to record the data of the rooms reactions and determine it’s properties. I wanted to explore whether I could use it for the purpose of my music, and see what kind of ideas and new material I would discover in doing so. My approach to utilising the speaker is not a scientific one, when I set it up I simply go by ear and intuition, trying to find the place in the given space for it that is most interesting and musical to me. In my original planning of this research project, I had planned to set up a string of solo concerts in various spaces in the second and third semester, to be able to test it’s possibilities in a concert setting with an audience, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic I wasn't able to do so as extensively as I had hoped. Instead I made experiments with it on my own in different spaces, and started to get a feel of the potential in it. What I ideally imagine and hope for with this type of speaker is creating a listening space where every place in the space will offer an equally good sonic experience, where it will also be an invitation for the members of the audience to move around and listen to the nuances of the space reacting to the sound I produce. For me as a performer, I'm interested in discovering the space in real time in a shared experience with the audience.
In working with the speaker I have come across a few challenges. A standard guitar speaker is very directional, and in working with an omni-directional speaker I have discovered how important that directionality is for the timbre of the sound and the touch of the electric guitar. When playing through the omni-directional speaker some dynamics and subtleties are lost in the detail of the sound, which gets proportionally more apparent the larger the space is. But, i found that by adding a subwoofer, which is also omni-directional, I started getting a sound I felt I really could work with and get results that didn't make me miss the slight loss of directionality.
- Inner space
- What sound do I want to place in the room? How do I want to break the silence that was there before I started making sound?
- What mental space do I wish to create for myself in order to channel the music?
- What mental space do I wish to offer to the audience sharing the space with me?
In the space, in the performative moment, with the audience, I'd like to be able to facilitate a shared holistic experience.
Further thoughts about inner space can be found in the section Sound and Body.
Oskar Schlemmer - "Figure in Space with Plane Geometry and Spatial Delineations", 1924.
This drawing has been on the wall above my work desk for the past two years. When I look at it I don't only see a human body in relation to a space, I also imagine the connecting lines as being sound reflections in the room. The space and the man and the sound become one.
