A Public Symposion at Freiraum Lüneburg on the occasion of the 5th Workshop of the International Research Network
funded by the German Research Foundation DFG and Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Friday May 11, 2012
4.30pm – 8pm
Freiraum Lüneburg
Salzstraße 1 [entry Auf der Altstadt]
21335 Lüneburg
How do new technologies shape the way we conceptualize, produce, and listen to sound?
How do these new sound practices affect notions like instrument, performance, and playing?
Together with the British sound researchers Steve Goodman („Sonic Warfare“, 2009) and Julian Henriques („Sonic Bodies“, 2011), we want to focus on the interrelationship between sound technologies, sound practices, and sound theories.
A panel discussion with Mark Butler („Unlocking the Groove“, 2006) and Paul Théberge („Any Sound You Can Imagine“, 1997) alongside Goodman and Henriques is followed by a performance on cello, wiimote, computer, and turntables with Sutsche & Fello (Pingipung Records, Hamburg).
With:
Steve Goodman
Julian Henriques
Mark Butler
Paul Théberge
Jochen Bonz
Michael Bull
Veit Erlmann
Franco Fabbri
Golo Föllmer
Marta García Quiñones
Rolf Großmann
Maria Hanáček
Carla Müller-Schulzke
Carlo Nardi
Thomas Schopp
Holger Schulze
Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid, Hilversum
in cooperation with Maastricht University & Amsterdam Museum – Fee: €20 (including lunch and afternoon drinks)
This one day symposium focuses on the “ears-on” experience of history in the museum. Which historical topics are most suited for a sonic approach? How can sound be staged in such a way that it makes history more easily accessible than through visual means—and which pitfalls should be prevented? Which technical tools are available beyond the audio guide and sound shower? And which possibilities for sound as an entrance into history do we have outdoors, in the form of sound walks and cell phone apps for instance?
Our symposium focuses on sound in the history museum, sonic tools for the history, and sound beyond the history museum. Its is a day for museum staff members, radio makers, historians, scholars working on sound studies, and a more general audience interested in sound and history.
Staging Sound in the Museum has been organized by Karin Bijsterveld and Andreas Fickers (Soundscapes of the Urban Past project, Maastricht University), Bas Agterberg (Beeld en Geluid) and Annemarie de Wildt (curator Amsterdam Museum), and is funded by NWO, the Dutch Science Foundation. Language of the day will be English
With the fourth workshop of the research network we began more intensely to concentrate on working on individual chapters and the overall structure of the final handbook. The workshop took place at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and it started with a public symposion at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Under the titel Gadget & App Culture we explore the anthrtopology of the senses in everyday life with lectures and performances by Jonathan Sterne, Veit Erlmann and Antye Greie a.k.a. AGF. Jonathan Sterne started with a compressed version of his upcoming book on the cultural history of the mp3-encoding format, in which he stressed the incorporated listening model from the year 1929 that was researched on by an industry-driven strive for efficiency in transducing at Bell Laboratories, just been baught by banker J.P.Morgan at this time. In the second lecture Veit Erlmann presented his thoughts on the cultural history of the unconscious concerning sound around 1900 as he explored it in his latest publication on Reason and Resonance. Both lectures were responded by Peter Wicke respectively by Michael Bull.
Jonathan Sterne’s lecture in audio
(as provided by our colleagues of the Klangschreiber-blog as hosted by Axel Volmar)
In the center of this afternoon an auditory performance by AGF did take place that truly altered our listening mode and auditory-corporeal self-perception in the specific situation: the concetrated and logocentric mode of listening to a lecture was urged to open up to a very different, bodily grounded mode of listening to the physical beats and sound processing alogrithms applied by the artist in her latest release beatnadel.
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This time the closed workshop on saturday dealt in its first part with the regular format of 6 brief 10-minute-presentations on aspects of an anthropology of the senses – which provided (rather not surprising) an insight into the state of current sound studies and its challenges as an evolving discipline or transdiscipline. Veit Erlmann, Jens Gerrit Papenburg, Jonathan Sterne, Holger Schulze and Michael Bull presented their likewise positions and research findings on either specific cases or general reflections on methodological and disciplinary questions but also the public representation of the field called sound studies: How can we deal in sound studies research with rather non-scientific statements (in the habit of research findings) as in this scary example by Julian Treasure? How can we understand the process of conceptualizing sound in the process of mastering audio records? How can we describe the current state of sound studies and prevent the mistakes made by other researchers in developing a new research field? How can we dismantle the deeply engraved sensory models in our research cultures? And finally: How can big projects on popularizing sound & sensory art as well as sound & sensory research contribute to the development of the field? All these questions brought us recurrently back to our work on the final publication.
In the afternoon we worked together on the general chapter structure and the process of writing collectively and individually this final volume that should comprise the work and the insights of the 25 researchers at the end of three years in 2013/14 into one artifact – be it digital or be it in paperform. The first publishers have been contacted and the next step will be a more detailed proposal by the three main editors and founders of this research network. The members and guests agreed that a basic concept should give young researchers the opportunity to present their work but also to represent adaequately the international discourse and the state of research in our field in the 2010s.
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On the last day a much smaller, additional international meeting took place with researchers e.g. from Denmark and The Netherlands. At first we received the great news from Erik Jensen that a Nordic Research Network for Sound Studies (NORSOUND) has just been granted; among the eight international guests of this all-scandivian network are three members and guests of this research network namely Michael Bull, Anahid Kassabian and Holger Schulze. Our main topic at this meeting was to discuss the outline of further european perspectives for the transdisciplinary field of sound studies – concerning research projects, biennial international conferences and promoting the work and education of younger researchers in this field.
A Public Symposion
at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin
on the occasion of the 4th Workshop
of the International Research Network,
funded by the German Research Foundation DFG
Friday October 28, 2011
4pm – 8pm
Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin
John-Foster Dulles-Allee 10
10557 Berlin
Theatersaal
How does mobile audio technology transform our perceptual techniques?
How does an anthropology of sound and the senses offer new insights into our everyday life with sounds?
We invited two of the most important international researchers in the field of sound studies, Jonathan Sterne and Veit Erlmann, to an afternoon of explorations: to explore the anthropology and cultural history of audile techniques – as examples of sensory technologies in populare culture. An audio performance by AGF a.k.a Antye Greie is at the center of this symposion. Michael Bull and Peter Wicke will respond to the two main lectures.
An introduction into sound studies as a – rapidly expanding and developing – transdisciplinary and international field of research.
Programme:
Part I:
Sensorial Technologies & Popular Culture
With: Jonathan Sterne, Peter Wicke & Holger Schulze
04:00 pm
Holger Schulze:
Introduction
04:15 pm Jonathan Sterne:
Lecture: Mp3 – a 100 year history of an 18 year-old format
This friday sees (or better: hears) the premiere of a radio programme that has been produced in a cooperation of the research network with Deutschlandradio Kultur Berlin, the biggest german cultural radio station. It will be the first in a series of three radio features that explore current research trends, aesthetic strategies and theoretic approaches to the sound and auditory studies under the title of:
Adventures in Sound: an Expedition to Designers, Artists, Musicians and Researchers
In one hour-long discussions members and guests of the international research network as well as artists, designers and musicians will present their positions, their research and production methods, their research questions and aesthetic goals – exemplified by specific and extensive
audible examples. The places in which these discussions are recorded in are important as well: each feature will incorporate a reflection on the auditory qualities of the place and of its technological, performative and sensorial ramifications.
The first discussion under the title Sound & the Studio has been recorded on occasion of the third workshop in London in March 2011 at the MA in Recording Arts, London College of Music. The participants were Maria Hanáček, Holger Schulze, Paul Théberge, David Toop and Simon Zagorski-Thomas (concept & production: Holger Schulze).
The first printed publication of the network is out (in german language): the journal Positionen – Texte zur aktuellen Musik invited us to contribute to their latest exploration of the developments and findings in the field of sound and auditory culture.
Beginning last summer we conceptualized a series of polemics, reviews, overviews, and even a compressed analysis of the state of research in the sound studies. We hope that our editorial cooperation for this issue of the Positionen serves as a good start to promote the exchange between the german and the international discussion – and that it can be helpful for researchers and scholars, students and teachers in the field of auditory research.
Our contributions are:
Holger Schulze, Jens Gerrit Papenburg & Maria Hanáček:
Sound in Media Culture. Porträt eines internationalen Forschungsnetzwerkes
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Musik Vs. Sound. Fünf Polemiken
1. Maria Hanáček:
Perspektivwechsel
2. Veit Erlmann:
Päng. Ein Interview
3. Holger Schulze:
Zwei Formationen
4. Rolf Großmann:
Schriftlichkeiten
5. Diedrich Diederichsen:
Sound – Musik – Pop – Musik
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Jens Gerrit Papenburg & Holger Schulze:
Fünf Begriffe des Klangs. Disziplinierungen und Verdichtungen der Sound Studies
Holger Schulze:
»The train is already running« SoundActs: Conference on Sound Studies
The third workshop of the research network took place in London, and it was the final and third venue in an art university: the London College of Music. We started on friday with two public lectures on the question of realism in studio production. Simon Zagorski-Thomas presented his notion of sonic cartoon with reference to the use of exaggerating and enhancing effects in the post-production of e.g. Bob Marley & The Wailers’ Lively Up Yourself. Paul Théberge then introduced us to aspects of film sound that stress the tactility, the immersiveness and the hyperrealist or even hallucinatory nature of film sound (with examples from the movies Amadeus, Inception and The last Mimzy.)
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On saturday the closed workshop session took place. Under the basic titel of Sound in Media Culture we did start in the morning with our regular series of 6 brief 10-minute-presentations; the network-members and guests Simon Zagorski-Thomas, Paul Théberge, Franco Fabbri, Maria Hanáček, Golo Föllmer and Carlo Nardi explored the following aspects of mediation and culturality of sound: How can we understand studio production in terms of an enhancing of auditory aspects, cartoon-like? In what way does sound (e.g. in anime-movies) substitute what is not real and present? How do we speak about sound in different native languages? How do narrations about famous studio buildings shape the common notion of the popluar music produced therein? What indicators or dimensions can be found to outline the material and empirical aesthetic of a radio station? How can we construct a theoretical approach to sound that integrates and pays respect to the genuine practical aspects of working with sound as well?
The afternoon was devoted to practical working group sessions in three studios by applying practice-based, artistic as well as design-related methods of research: one group explored the theory and learned also the practical aspects and results of the studio technique of worldizing a recorded sound by playing it back and recording it again in a public, non-studio environment; another group discussed and explored the dialectic between mediation and construction in media artifacts of popular music (as in tracks by Eric Prydz, Massive Attack/Mad Professor et.al.); and a third group explored the benefits and deficiencies of an empirical method to research the individual effects of different vocal styles and the Stimmschlüssel of speakers in different radio stations.
In the final plenary discussion the next steps of our work on the handbook and the production of an accompanying CD were discussed and structured for the remaining three workshops in Berlin, Lüneburg and Torino.
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On the morning of the last day, sunday, a discussion for the first of a series of three radio features (under the headline of Adventures in Sound: Explorations to Artists, Designers, Musicians & Researchers) was recorded in the rooms of the MA Record Production. Participants were, according to their research focuses, Maria Hanáček, Holger Schulze, Paul Théberge and Simon Zagorski-Thomas as well as our special guest DavidToop; Toop brought to our discussion inspiring and provocating new aspects of the limited historical and cultural reach and predominance of the concept of the studio as an important technological dispositive for audio production. The radio feature will be aired in the programme of Deutschlandradio Kultur Berlin on July 8, 2011, starting from 0:05 (Berlin time).
It was also David Toop who pointed us to this incredible track with all what is at stake right now in sound production – concerning non-gestural texture, physical gesture as well as the use of a dynamic time-structure on the one hand and a spatial amalgamation to dismantle a whole genre on the other hand: DJ Rashad & Add-2: Ghetto Tekz Runnin It (Ghettophiles! Chigaco 2011)
A public lecture & discussion
at the London College of Music,
MA Record Production
on the occasion of the 3rd Workshop
of the International Research Network,
funded by the German Research Foundation DFG
Friday March 25, 2011
4pm – 6pm
Thames Valley University
London College of Music
St. Mary’s Road, Ealing, London W5 5RF
Room TC102
Programme:
Paul Théberge:
Sounds, Studios and Screens – Studios as Dreamworlds
The notion of ‘realism’ that pervades cinema aesthetics is an ideology that conceals the fact that the work of the sound studio is not so much a work of mimesis as a work of the imagination. In a sense, while sound engineers work with recorded sounds, they imagine something else and realize those sounds in the studio – the studio is the first place where these sounds are truly heard.
Sound work in the studio operates by means of analogy; its aim is a tactile proximity; editing, enhancement, processing and mixing are its basic techniques; music is ubiquitous, appears to emanate from unseen sources, and inhabits a virtual space of its own.
The sounds become real in relation to images and narration but, ultimately, the combined effect of this process on audiences is as much material as it is meaningful. If cinema is a ‘dreamworld’, then the studio is where the dream begins.
Dr. Paul Théberge of Carleton University, Ottowa is the Canada Research Chair in Technological Mediations of Culture and author of Any Sound You Can Imagine.
Very little recorded music is realistically staged and we’re all very used to the hyper-real, larger than life sound of contemporary popular music and cinema sound. The staging of recorded music has evolved in conjunction with both musical and technological changes and one of the characteristics of this evolution has been the emergence of techniques that exaggerate particular features.
Just as visual cartoonists will highlight one or two features to represent some complex phenomenon, sonic cartoons do the same. The notion from the 1950s that a good recording should sound as it would in the best seats in a concert hall has been substantially altered by notions of clarity, high fidelity and atmosphere.
Dr. Simon Zagorski-Thomas of the London College of Music, TVU is Chairman of the Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production.
The second workshop of the research network took place in Vienna, and it was also the second of three venues in an art university: the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien.
On friday it all started with a public symposion on the question: In what way could it be meaningful and fruitful to install a program on Sound Studies at an art university? Jochen Bonz started with a reflection on the function of a decidedly heteronomous subjectivity analyzing the article White Light/White Heat: Jouissance Beyond Gender in the Velvet Underground (1999) by Jeremy Gilbert as well as Acoustic Environments in Change (2009) by Helmi Järviluoma and numerous finnish colleagues, a re-study of the seminal Five Villages-study from 1975 (originally by members of the World Soundscape Project). Holger Schulze then presented the basic concept, the syllabus and the central institutional and team-building approaches of the M.A. in Sound Studies that he and numerous colleagues developed and installed at the Universität der Künste Berlin since the year 2000.
A final panel discussion with personnel and guests from the local institution as well as the sound art-scene such as electronic sound and recording artist Franz Pomassl (co-founder of the Austrian Laton experimental techno label and of the Soundstudio at the Academy of the Fine Arts), TONSPUR-curator Georg Weckwerth and sound artist Christina Nemec (a.k.a. Chra) discussed with Diedrich Diederichsen how it could be inspiring and possible to install a Sound Studies-program at this specific art university?
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On saturday the closed workshop session took place. Under the titel of Sound in everyday life within popular culture we did start in the morning with a series of 5 very brief (only 10mins!), but provocating presentations and discussions at a roundtable under the title of What kind of Popular can be voiced ; the network-members and guests Thomas Hecken, Diedrich Diederichsen, Carla Müller-Schulzke, Claudia Bullerjahn and Thomas Schopp stirred up truly controversively and lively discussions on the questions: How have notions of the popular been embedded in historically specific discourses? How can a critically informed aesthetic perspective on sound in music and film interrupt received narratives of pop culture? What are the effects of polyphonic listening on received concepts of voice and identity in popular culture? How do the functions of popular music change in relation to the changing formats of production, reception, and dissemination? And finally: If we are losing the popular: What are the consequences of this perspective for the study of sound and music?
In the three separated working groups on the afternoon we discussed specific aspects of popular culture in relation to the Sound Studies and the reference handbook which this research network is working on. The broad plenary discussion on late afternoon showed us how a first complex and disciplinary as well as historically, culturally and methodologically differentiated structure of the handbook could unfold.
At the last day, sunday, as some of us went to the exhibition Hyper Real in the MUMOK we could experience other aspects of popular culture in the fine arts. Or as an artist’s statement in this exhibition said: »I don’t think subject matter should be very important − but it is important.« (unfortunately I do not recall who it was; but if you can help me out, please do so! Thank you.) My personal soundtrack for these days in Vienna was this truly hyperreal-soundproduction by the three Dubstep-heros Benga, Skream and Artwork of Magnetic Man: I Need Air.
A public Symposion
at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
on the occasion of the 2nd Workshop
of the International Research Network,
funded by the German Research Foundation DFG
Friday November 26, 2010
2pm – 7pm
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Schillerplatz 3
A-1010 Vienna
Room M13A
Program (in German):
2:00pm
Opening Words:
Rektor Stefan Schmidt-Wulffen
Holger Schulze (DFG-Network)
2:30pm
Jochen Bonz:
Who’s in charge of sound-perception?
On the subjective nature of Sound Studies’ validity.
3:30pm
Holger Schulze:
Klang studieren?
Sound Studies als Artistic Research.
4:30pm
Coffee break
5:00pm
Wer will was vom Sound
Panel: Christina Nemec, Franz Pomassl, Georg Weckwerth, Moderation: Diedrich Diederichsen
