{hhr, 200124}

What would be required so that a sound is associated with the surroundings (that thus do not apriori include that sound), or the other way around, what would permit the dissociation? What then does it mean that a sound becomes part of the surroundings (does that happen, and if so, how)?

{function: comment, author: HHR, keywords: [surroundings, association, perception, sound, dissociation]}

{Poz, 200109}

Trying to draw some connections between all the various thoughts about edges, expansion, foreground/background and plausibility. quotes are straight, my reactions are tilted

{function: contextual}

{Poz, 200109}

It's interesting how you relate the question of edges with the idea of expanding the space, that I also find quite intriguing. You suggest that such an expansion could be achieved by "not having any processes that could make the perception of the whole sound not be associated with the sounds of surrounding" and two practical steps in this direction could be amplification and slight distortion.  I thought of trying it out, so I started playing a bit with the audio files David recorded in the staircase and the sc patch I wrote last time. What I aimed at first was sketching out a process using amplification and slight (temporal) distortion - reverberation - to play a bit with the idea of plausibility. having a ground situation of amplification, then moments of "expansion" - kind of expanding acoustic sounds into plausible articulations - and then falling back into amplification again (I think the result it's still a bit too
exagerated for being considered "under the threshold of plausibility")

{function: comment, keywords: [edges, expansion, plausibility, space, perception, distortion, sound, amplification]}

sc code

line 21

{kind: repository}

edges - from ji

I immediately think of 'expanding' the space, which I find it quite fascinating. Amplification as the very first step to it, then the aural perception of the space can only be slightly distorted. Not having any processes that could make the perception of the whole sound not be associated with the sounds of surrounding ↗, the sound of the space itself can slowly melt into/transfer into the one that is slightly abnormal/weird to our ears, but it can certainly make the 'edges' vague. ↗

{kind: quote, persons: JYK}

{Poz, 200109}

In the example above, some sounds don't have enough energy to excite the resonator: in this case, the result is (almost) only amplification - or subtle reverberation. Others sounds, typically the louder ones, create perceivable and sustained resonances for short periods of time and then fade away. I somehow relate these temporal gestures - appearing, fading away, disappearing - to the idea of "articulation".

Something that I like about this experiment is how acoustic sounds also contribute to shape the resonator  itself, by modifying the dimensions of the "digital room". In some circumstances, the resonant modes of this evolving room match some specific frequencies of sounds produced in the staircaise, letting emerge those long sustained resonances. In continuing the experiment, I tried to emphasyse this aspect:
{function: comment, keywords: [edges, expansion, plausibility, space, perception, distortion, sound, amplification, resonances, reverberation]}

sc code

line 53
{kind: repository}

    edges

background / foreground

             plausibility

{Poz, 200109}

Here the recirculation is definitely too exagerated, but what I find interesting is the temporal balance between stable resonances and rapid changes of state
{function: comment, keywords: [edges, expansion, plausibility, space, perception, distortion, sound, amplification, resonances, reverberation]}

edges - from hanns holger

The blurring of edges reminds me of Morton Feldman's admiration of the paintings of Mark Rothko, which also had to do with the way the edges were faded. In terms of the architecture, I would first of all think of the sound skin—the Max Neuhaus installation, which also does this blending in with the environment (it might be a frame of reference for us). Another angle would be Robin Minard's distinction between articulating or conditioning an atmosphere ↗ (the former would probably correspond to the idea of the "single entity").

For me this question of blurring is related to the distinction (or collapse) of foreground/background—so we meet here directly with your question of background/piece.

{kind: quote, persons: HHR}

presence / absence - from hanns holger

The question of absence/presence seems related to the edges, whether they fade, whether we perceive them. We can certainly introduce and outroduce a sound in a seemingless way, so there is only a change of presence/absence when we actively put that as a question to our observation. But absence/presence seems orthogonal to occupying/transparent. It is not a zero sum game. You can create a sound that does not "take away" space from other sounds and element, but can coexist with the rest. Occupation means occupation of attention. Occupation has some negative connotations, but we can view it as a neutral term or description. Something can take away our attention; that's a decision we make or make not.
{kind: quote, persons: HHR}

edges - from david

Personally, I interpret the /plausible/ in a different manner. Less than something that "disappears" as something "normal", itis a sound that is at the /margin/ of the set of sounds that may be ignored masked by our everyday repeated experience and those that attract attention as fall out of the known, pre-depicted world. This margin is very interesting to me. ↗
{kind: quote, persons: DP}

edges - from david

I would like the
two elements or agents (space and installation) to retain a certain individuality, a more or

less clearly perceivable boundary along which their intra-action takes
place. Maybe this "separation" can be not so "clear cut", gray, and
dynamic. Still, I'm interested in the integration /movement/, the
/evolution/ of the interaction, the /deforming/ of both agents (space
and installation) due to their actions and reaction and less in a
static situation in which they become "one".
{kind: quote, persons: DP}

{Poz, 200109}

Could you elaborate a bit more on how you intend the correspondace between Minard's definition of articulation and the idea of the "single entity"? ↗

{function: comment, persons: Robin Minard, keywords: [articulation, conditioning]}

plausibility

/plausibility is grounded in experience and is based on anticipations, expectations

/a sound is plausible when it doesn't get in conflict with pre-depicted anticipations _?
{function: comment, keywords: [plausibility, temporality, experience, listening, attention, expectations]}

nevertheless, I think plausibility has also to do with how a sound appears or disappears, or more in general with its temporality. Think of a sound with a super slow fade in (as in Neuhaus work, for example). The fade in is so slow that the sound gets integrated in your experience of the place: you don't notice it as extraneous, it simply becomes part of the surrounding. It only becomes implausible (noticeable) when this particular temporality ends (when it suddendly stops). Or the opposite, fading away as moving away from the focus of attention as suggested by Hanns ↗

{function: comment, keywords: [plausibility, temporality, experience, listening, attention]}

{hhr, 200124}

The articulation of a space means that your intervention consists of finding particular elements of the space which are hightened or elevated through the sound. The sound's function is to "speak" the space as it is (perceived by the artist). It is not aimed at introducing an estranging element. So no independent entity is built. Whereas in conditioning, you deliberately alter the existing atmosphere of a space, in allusion to the idea of "air conditioning"; you create new climate that wasn't their prior.

{function: comment, persons: Robin Minard, keywords: [articulation, sound, conditioning]}

    deforming

evolution

             transparency

transformation

edges - from ji

But then I'd probably add some sense of segmentations here (how can we combine those two contradictory concepts?): thinking of Lucier's ways of transformation: meaning introducing the time domain.
{kind: quote, persons: JYK}

on communication - from hanns holger

If one system tells another "I'm playing", that is strictly speaking not yet a form of communication, because it does not include the interpretation of that message on the receiving side. I think, ideally the communication system we establish has to do with mutuality, there needs to be a related bidirectional flow.

{kind: quote, persons: HHR}

{Poz, 200109}

What would happen if we exchanged some form of data, without previous agreement on any protocol, or without discussing what to send and how to interpret it? Would that still be a form of "communication"? This somehow reminds me again of Brün's concept of anticommunication (altoguh he uses the term in a different context): a relation which emerges and is maintained through messages requiring and permitting not yet available encoding and decoding systems or mechanisms. ↗
{function: comment, persons: Herbert Brün, keywords: [protocol, communication, encoding, decoding]}

edges - from hanns holger

it could also be imitation, "blending in", camouflage, becoming transparent. But also active processes on our sound material, such as erasure and blurring. If something recedes into the background, it moves away from the layer of focus. There are also the curious games of attention: The ticking of the wall clock that disappears from our consciousness, the aural blindspots.
{kind: quote, persons: HHR}

on bridges - from david
I really think, as I think also Ji suggested, it could be very
interesting to include the possibility to have these "bridges" or
channels of influence open on just a few segments of time, or to have
the single works "decide" when they would be ready to be affected.

{kind: quote, persons: DP}

    communication

             bridges

{hhr, 200124}

I think there is a continuous of "interpretability". There is a minimum protocol you have to agree on, but if that is too minimal, say "a stream of floating point numbers between -1.0 and +1.0", then it is both a strain on the receiving end, and chances are that are mostly adding noise to the system. It also excludes the bidirectionality, because if one end cannot acknowledge that it "understood" anything it was receiving, then it becomes again a "broadcast" situation. That's why I would insist that a minimum communication protocol should include some ways of acknowledging a bidirectional understanding, and thus would include a set of symbols and forms that have been agreed upon in advance, even if that can leave still a whole lot of space for interpretation.