|
Forums für Klanglandschaft Number 3, January, 1997 Table of Content
Renewal is due! Please renew by paying your 1997 membership now.
Editorial: Sounds from beyond the acoustic horizon The horizon of sounds is, as phenomenologist Don Ihde has stated, the horizon of silence. Just as the world beyond the visual horizon cannot be seen, the world beyond the horizon of sounds cannot be heard. Sounds trivial. Both, light and sound phenomena unfold in time, and thus any horizon is always a temporal horizon: things can be foreseen only when they are already within our horizon. Can they be "foreheard"? The question is less trivial. Any sound is present only at the very moment when it is already sounding, that is, when it is within our acoustic horizon. This fact ist not just physical, but existential. I am thinking that kind of thoughts when preparing an issue of this newsletter, since someone asked me if I found it intelligent to have headings like "Looking forward" or "Looking back" in a newsletter for listening issues. The trouble is, that even if this newsletter appears four times a year it is too early for some events to figure in it, and too late for some to be reviewed in time. Many will disappear in the flow of time without having reached us. But what a newsletter actually can do is letting people forehear an event, by being a modest contribution to communication. Some events just remain in imagination beyond the horizon of sound; some are hallucinations, reported from within an individual acoustic horizon, but at last not tangible; some become real within a common acoustic horizon. All three kinds of sound events are worth to be reported in this newsletter, even if the reality of life never makes as clear a difference between them as our rationalist mind would like... Justin Winkler
Please do not hesitate to send us contributions! Deadline of the New Soundscape Newsletter Number 4 is April 30, 1997. Call for Proposals: The First International Yearbook of Soundscape Studies - "Northern Soundscapes" The new journal International Yearbook of Soundscape Studies (IYSS) is aiming at creating an interdisciplinary forum for publishing new research in soundscape studies. The first yearbook is dedicated to "the North". The area we have mind ranges from places like Scandinavia to Siberia and Northern Canada. We invite you to study both urban and rural soundscapes, and encourage you even to collect new field material for this special issue. What are the soundscapes like at Northern airports, sports centres, city libraries? What about village soundscapes in different parts of the North? Also, articles which present these topics with new methodological approaches are invited. The first Yearbook will be edited by R. Murray Schafer (Canada), Helmi Järviluoma (Finland), Ola Stockfelt (Sweden) and Keiko Torigoe (Japan). It is aimed to be ready for the Summer 1998, when Stockholm will be the European cultural capital and a conference on acoustic ecology will be held there. It is planned that the IYSS would rotate around the world, the next book being published by Japanese soundscape scholars; a German-Italian group proposes to coordinate the subsequent IYSS. Deadline for proposals ist December 31, 1996 - if you learn about it only from this newsletter, you are still welcome within thirty days; deadline for articles is November 30, 1997. Submit one page proposals to: Helmi Järviluoma, Ethnomusicology, University of Tampere, P.O. Box 607, 33101 Tampere, Finland; fax +358 3 2157 081.
Forum für Klanglandschaft Wir laden auf den 8. Februar 1997 zur zweiten ordentlichen Hauptversammlung des Forums für Klanglandschaft nach Freiburg i.Br. ein. (Ja, Freiburg - nicht wie vorangekündigt Karlsruhe. Das Zentrum für Medien und Kunst, das uns in seinen neuen Räumen empfangen wollte, ist im Baurückstand.) Nach der Mitgliederversammlung: Arbeit am FKL-Leitbild. Die verbleibende Zeit des Nachmittags steht für die Erarbeitung des Leitbildes und, wie anlässlich der letzten Hauptversammlung verschiedentlich gewünscht, für die persönlichen gesprächsweisen Kontakte zur Verfügung. Beginn der Mitgliederversammlung 13.30 Uhr im Kommunalen Kino, Alter Wiehrebahnhof, Freiburg i.Br. Erreichbarkeit: vom Bahnhof mit Tram 4 bis Hst. Lorettostrasse, dann links in Urachstrasse; mit Tram 1 bis Hst. Schwabentorbrücke, dann Hildastrasse bis Abzweigung nach links in Urachstrasse; von der Autobahnausfahrt Freiburg-Mitte Richtung Donaueschingen bis Günterstalstrasse (zweite Ampel), dort rechts abbiegen. Rückfragen: FKL, Herrenwingert, 8886 Mädris-Vermol, Fax +41 81 723 4950, und Justin Winkler, Tel./Fax +41 32 841 4654.
Klangturm St. Pölten Der Turm als Tor zu einer sich stürmisch ausbreitenden medialen Welt: ein internationales Forum für kreative Entwicklungen, beruhend auf dem subtilen Prinzip der Wahrnehmung und ihrer sensorischen Weiterverarbeitung; ein zusammenführen unterschiedlicher Disziplinen: Audio Art, Performance, Literatur, Multimedia, Bildende Kunst und Forschung; ein Schöpfen aus dem Potential verschiedener Bereiche - diese Komplexität ist der Schlüssel der Zukunft für uns. 21. März - 21. April 1997, Feedback, eine interaktive Ausstellung 30.-31. Mai 1997, Mondecho, ein Klang- und Lichtspiel. Leitung Pauline Oliveros, Special Guest Sainkho Namtchlyak Frühjahr 1998, Klänge & Zeichen ind Zeit & Raum, mit Brian Eno, Matt Hackert, Christine Kubisch, Trimpin, Peter Vogel u.a. Ab Jänner 1997, Kontinuierliches Schulungsprogramm, Internationale Forschungsprojekte Klangturm St. Pölten, der Intendant, Daniel-Gran Strasse 48, A - 3100 St. Pölten. Kurator Mia Zabelka. Informationen +43 2742 311020-0, ab 1.3. 1997 +43 2742 201-0; e-mail klangturm@noet.at
Symposium "Zuhören" (pd) Vom 24. bis 27. September 1997 veranstaltet der Hessische Rundfunk in Kassel, parallel zur documenta, ein internationales Symposium zum Thema "Zuhören". Während der viertägigen Zusammenkunft, die auch ein künstlerisches Begleitprogramm und Workshops umfasst, werden Wissenschaftler, Künstler und Kulturschaffende die 'Kulturtechnik Zuhören' reflektieren. Wichtigstes Ziel soll sein, die Zuhör-Kompetenz in der Gesellschaft insgesamt zu fördern und eine breite öffentliche Debatte zu diesem Thema zu initiieren. Dass es Menschen heute immer schwerer fällt, konzentriert, ausdauernd und kritisch zuzuhören, ist eine Beobachtung, die weit über die Akzeptanzprobleme anspruchsvoller Hörfunk-Sendungen hinaus verweist: Sie wird von Politikern ebenso geteilt wie von Pädagogen, Sozialarbeitern und Therapeuten. Die wesentlichen Gründe für das breite Unvermögen zur akustischen Aufmerksamkeit sehen Philosophen und Wissenschaftler zu einen in der alltäglichen Wahrnehmungs-Sozialisation, die auf die Vorherrschaft des Visuellen gründet und auf schnelle Fasslichkeit ausgelegt ist. Zum anderen wirken sich zunehmend Verhaltensmuster aus, die Selbstdarstellung und Präsentation höher bewerten als die zurückgenommene Kommunikationshaltung des Zuhörens. Der Hessische Rundfunk, der sich als Kulturträger mit dieser Problematik befasst, will mit dem geplanten Symposium Anstösse geben zu einem aktiven Zuhören. Die Kulturtechnik Zuhören soll sowohl einer breiten Öffentlichkeit als auch wissenschaftlichen und kulturellen Kreisen nahegebracht werden. Beirat: Hermann Bausinger, Heinz Dürr, Hermann Glaser, Heiner Goebbels, Peter Härtling, Hartmut Holzapfel, Uwe Kammann, Michael Krüger, Gerhard Maletzke, Klaus Ring, Peter Steinacker. Projektleitung für den Hessischen Rundfunk: Sabine Breitsameter. From September 24 to 27, 1997 will take place in Kassel, Germany, in connection with the "documenta" exhibition, a symposium about "Listening", organized by Hessischer Rundfunk. It features workshops, talks and performances that focus on listening as a cultural technique. Informations: Hessischer Rundfunk, Symposium "Zuhören", D - 60222 Frankfurt/Main.
Stage découverte de l'écoute et communication avec la montagne Stages de deux jours et deux nuits avec logement, repas et cours CHF 280, 14-16 mars, 17-19 octobre 1997. Donnés par Germaine Cousin-Zermatten, Raymond Cousin et Alexandre Cotty à St-Martin dans les Alpes valaisannes (Suisse). Reseignements : Raymond Cousin, Case postale 42, CH - 1969 St-Martin VS, Tél./Fax +41 27 281 3030. Looking Back Eavesdropping and Eardrops In spring 1996, the Community Radio Education Service, working in concert with Co-op Radio and the Britannia Westside Community Centres in Vancouver B.C., trained several community groups in basic radio recording and editing skills. The project was led by audio artists Ian Pringle and Claire Kinder, and culminated in the production of a half-dozen audio collages reflecting the soundcape of diverse communities. The pieces were premiered on Co-op Radio and will be played on other community radio stations across Canada.
K.U.L.M.- KunstUndLebenMix Steirischer Herbst, 6.-26. Oktober 1996. Symposion 13. Oktober: "Ein Haus für unseren Bach", B. Adam; Wanderung / 7 Zeichen Installation "Römerbach", R. Frankenberger; Umweltlabor, P. Glaser; Hörspaziergang. Klangbilder, M. Huber; Das Prinzip Nachhaltigkeit, J. Prem; POLITIK, G. Ranegger; Videomikroskopie, H. Stibor. Kontakt: KULM, Kulturstock 3, Alter Schuhfabrik, A - 8212 Pischelsdorf. Listening Diaries Machoism Yesterday when taking a walk to Yamato River in South Osaka, I was amazed at a stridently buzzing sound and pollution clouds. I already had the ears full with the high pitched throbbing of the two-sits-planes taking off one after the other in the sunday afternoon: the way to the river takes me along the local airport, and I often listen there to the helicopters and small planes while looking at the mountains in the background. But the buzzing at the Yamato River was less stimulating for my imagination: a group of middle aged men were playing remote controlled model helicopters, each of them about 50 cm in length and releasing huge trails of stinking gas. They had an impressive set of such toys and visibly enjoyed the game. It looked quite childish, I must say, in a place which is just a couple of hundred meters apart from the real airport real size helicopters ready to be driven by real human beings... For example by themselves. The landscape, the soundscape and the air quality (well, a poor air quality in fact in this area, because of too many factories built after too old environmental standards) were quite distorded by their intrusion. I tried to figure out which kind of satisfaction they could have playing in the middle of a gazoline cloud and sonic cluster. The answer which I could find was a not spectacular, immerged in the traditional male-only society: they probably smply enjoyed to impose their noisy polluting presence to the rest of the environment, something they mostly cannot do during the feudal hours of their corporate life: "Look at us, listen to us, take a deep breath at our emissions, bow and scrape at our technical skills: We are the economic power, we are the guys!" Oh ye, baby, I love you! I cannot help shuddering at the idea of how they may behave to their house-wives... Emmanuelle Loubet, Yao, November 3, 1996
Drone at Home Drone as acoustic reality or physiological post-effect of a sonic stimulus? At regular intervals in my life I got disrupted by droning sounds - sound of refrigerators in mansion-buildings, sounds of coolers from neighbourghood buildings, non-identified drone (the worst to fight out psychologically). This morning at least I could work out an explanation for the occurrence of one type of drone. A car stopped for a couple of minutes in front of my house, letting the motor running. Stopped cars with running motor are very frequent in Japan. Moreover, it is a habit among workers and salary men to take a noon break by sleeping in their trucks or cars while the motor is running - for ventilation or cooler sake, I assume. The running motor stimulated a droning sound which was transmitted through the floor to my pillow. That happened again: I did not even notice when the car had gone away, because the droning tone was at this time already transferred, installed and generated independently of his original source inside my ear. I have three explanations to this phenomenon: 1. The drone already exists in my home but becomes only tangible to my perception when triggered by an outside acoustic stimulus. 2. The drone already exists in my head but becomes only tangible to the perception when triggered by an outside acoustic stimulus. 3. The drone does not exist nor in my home nor in my head. It happens to be generated by an external acoustic stimulus over a limited duration, interfering with my ear and triggering an internal drone which remains then in my ears/head for weeks or months, like a sympathetic vibrating string. In any case, an outside stimulus is necessary to make the droning sound come alive. In the last issue of the New Soundscape Newsletter, Klaus Wittig wrote a very interesting sound diary about the droning tone produced by a refrigerator and it's harmful impact on his ears. I am sure that a lot of people suffer from such "hidden" noises, but do not speak about them because the experience is in fact difficult to share: most of the time, nobody else hears the drone except the person concerned by it and living with it. A person complaining about a drone is mostly taxed of hyper-sensibility, hyer-nervosity and too often laughed at. I would like to listen to the experience of more people on this issue. Is there a technical way to make such a sound tangible, to record it graphically or acoustically? Emmanuelle Loubet, Osaka, November 3, 1996
Silent Night in the City A few years ago a Brazilian colleague recounted to me his first experience of a Canadian winter: the extraordinary silence of winter, the silence that descends on to a landscape when the snow falls. I sensed a yearning for that type of silence from him, something he will never get in his own country. He called it a treasure, the season of winter snow silence, a guaranteed reprieve from throbbing life. It started snowing a few days before Christmas this year. This is unusual, as we normally have mild, rainy weather around this time of the year. Whenever it snows in Vancouver, the city grinds to a halt. No one seems prepared for it, most people seem unpractised in driving in the snow, and snowplows are a rare sight. The rest of Canada, which knows winter for at least five months of the year, simply mocks our inexperience. When I step out of my house on Christmas Eve, I hear a truly "silent night" for the first time in many, many years. There is no traffic sound. The usual urban throb from downtown and the nearby busy roads have disappeared completely. I hear someone's crisp footsteps a block away. I hear a faint 60 cycles hum from a streetlight, the hiss from the gas meter at my house. My own breath and footsteps are the loudest sounds. The Christmas lights in the fir tree sparkle in the snow and I suddenly notice the unusual shape of the tree across the street. Someone is carrying a garbage bag full of empty bottles. I hear him walking through the nearby park, bottles clinking, the bag rustling. He stops to rest for a minute and I wonder where he is going to find a shop on this evening that would give him refunds for the bottles. It feels as if my ears are reaching out into all corners of the city, across the silenced soundwalls of streets and buildings, through the windows of houses, into the deeper silences and sounds of our culture. The tiniest sounds in my snowy vicinity create a place of intimacy in the middle of this large city. No sound is anonymous now. Every sound has its clear identity, a well defined place. There is no broadband sound that devours all our smaller sounds and with them all sense of place. There is no urban throb to mask the truth of the man's life who has to search for empty bottles on Christmas Eve. I breathe in deeply and listen to the silence of the nearby giant looming over our neighbourhood: the new hospital building that normally exhales all sorts of soinc garbage. I cannot get enough of this quiet. It starts to snow again and the two-tone call from the distant Point Atkinson foghorn reaches me through the white silence. Christmas 1996 in Vancouver, Hildegard Westerkamp Hints and Reviews The Background Music Legend Anyone who suffers from some sort of music in public places, restaurants or physician's waiting rooms is at pains when he or she wants to object to it. When you dare express yourself against this kind of music (even if only telling the waiters to lower the volume) you will meet the background music legend: the list of reasons why they cannot, dare not, do not want to respect your, the customer's preference, is long, its items from amazing to bizarre. Scientific reports about the effects of background music are well kept under lock and key by the main suppliers(1) in order not to weaken the legend. The background music legend is so forceful and its scions are so varied, that every scientific evidence against it is welcome for anyone who is about to despair. German psychologists Rötter and Plössner(2) found that background music in department stores has no significant objective effect on shopping behaviour. Reviewing reports of investigations in disciplines such as marketing, neurology, psychology and musicology from 1979 to 1989 they state contradicting findings. They discuss several hypotheses about the influence of piped music on people: i. loud (foreground) music causes observable physiological changes. ii. gentle (background) music affects the mood and gives people a positive attitude. iii. background music has no effect at all because habituation intercepts any activation of the receptive system. For 40 weekdays they carried out an empirical study in a supermarket in a Westfalian city. The store was filled with standard commercial background music during half of these days. 945 people were observed, and the time which they spent in the store was established. In addition 75 people on a day with music and 75 on a day without were asked when leaving the store, a) what their mood was, and b) if they felt that they had bought more than they intended. The result of question a) was that "there is no difference in the customer's mood, whether the background music is played in the supermarket or not". The result of question b) was that "after hearing no music in the store, they state that they had bought more than they had intended." In both cases there are no significant differences as to age or sex. The turnover of approximately 16'000 customers without piped music and 16'000 with it showed no significant difference: "Background music has no influence on the turnover in a supermarket." This is true for a market which serves everyday needs. Moreover, "it was found that there is no difference in the time spent by the customers in the supermarket, whether background music is played or not." (Approximate translation of quotes by the editors) The authors conclude that background music has no influence on the mood of the test persons: it neither leads them into spending more time in the store nor does it increase turnover. Contrary to the objective evidence people just think that they had bought more than they wanted. Rötter and Plössner think that in the realm of department stores background music and of recently developed supermarket radio programmes there is much evidence in favour of the habituation hypothesis. They think that, on the other hand, loud "foreground" music present in specialized stores such as jeans shops might show effects that can be established objectively. If the presence or absence of music, as this investigation shows, is neutral with respect to mood of customers and turnover, does it in the end matter, if it is piped in or not? We could continue to do it just for fun... The authors think that it matters, and they are against this kind of music for cultural reasons. The discussion does not end here, but from here it would have to start. Justin Winkler Notes:
Noisegate "The purpose of Noisegate is to inform and cross-fertilize artistic, social and scientific information, research and practice with regard to sound." We have read in the May 1996 issue: Noise, the sound drug, by Ron Geesin; Disorientation in public places, by Rupert Hartley; Hearing is believing, by Hattie Naylor; and more... "Scanner (Robin Rimbaud) performed a stunning set of sound and scanned text - from shopping lists to a lover's debate, soaked in ambient textures, and sampled rhythms - moving meticulously about his complex equipment in a stillness and exactness, in mesmeric contrast to the captivating dissonance of his sound. Scanner has recently appeared on Radio in a short, ten minute slot. The BBC were inundated with callers claiming to be the owners of the conversations picked up from the air waves by Scanner and used in his soundscapes, and the BBC are now dealing with a number of liable cases." (Hearing is believing, by Hattie Naylor, Noisegate 3 1996, p. 67) Quarterly. Subscription rates £10 for individuals, £20 for institutions, single copy £2 (£2.50 through mail). Compiled by Paddy Collins, Mark Hadley, Sean Reynard. Noisegate c/o Wake Rd., Nether Edge, Sheffield S7 1HG, U.K.; tel. +44 114 255 2037, e-mail pgambard@pine.shu.ac.uk Bruits Le numéro 16 d'Equinoxes (1996) est consacré aux bruits. Y ont contribué : I "Musiques du bruit", Brenno Boccadoro, Georges Starobinski, Jean-Yves Bosseur, Daniel Charles, Etienne Darbellay ; II "Bruits de lettres", Christopher Lucken, Juan Rigoli, Adrien Gür, Olivier Blanc, Ambroise Barras, Vincent Barras ; III "Images du bruit", Nathalie Baumann, Michel Porret. Equinoxes paraît deux fois par an. Adresse : Association Arches - Equinoxe, case postale 4, CH - 1701 Fribourg
Wasser Klänge Stadt Eine Publikation mit CD "Wasser Klänge Stadt. Klanginstallation Wasserspirale - ein Beitrag von Künstlern und Wissenschaftlern zur Ökologie der Stadt", herausgegeben von Detlev Ipsen und Astrid Wehrle, ist in Vorbereitung. 40 Seiten, bebildert und mit CD, ca. DEM 36. Es handelt sich um den Katalog zu einem Experiment, das zum Ziel hatte, den Wirkungsbereich einer künstlerischen Intervention im städtischen Raum zu ermitteln. Die Beiträge wenden sich aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven dem Ereignis zu: einer Klanginstallation an einem Platz in der Frankfurter Innenstadt. Sie nähern sich als Künstler, Klangforscher, Klangdesigner und Wissenschaftler. Vorbestellung: Akroama, Hammerstrase 14, CH - 4058 Basel, Fax +41 61 691 0064.
The Chicago Soundscape Project The Chicago Soundscape Project (CSP) is a collaborative audio art project incorporating the efforts of a number of community groups, artists, and individuals from Chicago and Germany. It has been organized and coordinated by Dawn Mallozzi and Lou Mallozzi of Experimental Sound Studio (ESS) in collaboration with the Goethe Institut Chicago. The CSP evolved from conversations initiated several years ago between ESS and German media artist and soundscape researcher Hans Ulrich Werner. Plans for the project were solidified at a meeting between ESS associate director Lou Mallozzi and Werner at The Tuning of the World conference in Banff in 1993. The concern with an environmental approach to sonic art advocated by H.U. Werner, combined with ESS's ongoing development of outreach activities aimed at bringing provocative sonic experience to a widening public, evolved into the community-centred approach of this artistic project. In 1995, ESS formed a Working Group of artists, administrators, and cultural activists. The artists in the Working Group had expertise in sound, composition, public art projects, and collaboration. These artists were Michael Piazza, Bea Santiago, Lisa Kucharski, Jeff Kowalkowski, Craig Kois, Lou Mallozzi, and Tod Szewsczyk. They were joined by several arts administrators and cultural activists who brought their expertise in administration, community outreach, financial management, and presenting. As the sponsoring organization for CSP, ESS lent the organizational framework to the meetings and disseminated the resulting information. In addition, the Working Group was in regular contact with H.U. Werner and his colleague Michael Rüsenberg in Cologne, who contributed both theoretical knowledge and practical experience, garnered from soundscape projects they had done in various parts of the world. At a series of monthly meetings, the Working Group addressed issues of community, inclusion, and identity. All of these considerations came to bear on the approach, process, and outcome of each community's sonic contribution to the project. For example, instead of inventing a whole new community outreach structure, the Working Group decided to work with artists who already had ongoing involvement with community groups, and who wished to extend those communities' artistic investigations through sound. The conceptual sophistication and artistic vision of all those involved, in conjunction with the complex richness of the communities, has allowed the CSP to address and represent the reality of the interconnected scales of urban identity - individual, neighbourhood, community, and city. The artists began to work on conceptual and production outlines with each community group early in 1996. ESS arranged soundscape workshops with these groups, conducted by Lou Mallozzi and Dawn Mallozzi in conjunction with the participating artists. The aim of the workshops was to develop sonic acuity and attention to one's sonic environment, and to introduce methods for structuring the recording of that environment into a coherent artistic representation. These workshops began with the question: What is soundscape? Through the presentation of numerous audio examples from throughout the world, approaches to an investigation of the sonic environment and experience were introduced. The question then became: What is our soundscape? In this way, the discourse extended into the particularities of each community, exploring that group's own sonic experience and identity, mapping and scoring the sounds of the community, and developing ideas about the relationships of sound, life experience, and representation. Workshop activities also included the use of portable recorders to gather sounds, listening sessions to evaluate the recordings, and pre-production meetings. In collaboration with the artists, and with production assistance from ESS, each community group produced a five- to-six-minute sonic self-portrait, concentrating on the sounds that, for them, best defined their environment and experience. To facilitate these productions, ESS provided field recording equipment, multi-track recording facilities, engineering and technical assistance, and tape supplies. By the spring of 1996, eight pieces were produced. Several were self-productions by members of the community with assistance from local artists, as described above. Others were produced by individual artists or collectives investigating certain aspects of the city. In addition, the artists and community groups participating in the project sent selected sounds to H.U. Werner and M. Rüsenberg in Cologne. These sonic gifts were the materials from which Werner and Rüsenberg produced three short interludes and two longer compositions. In this way, CSP is a pluralistic series of self-portraits from the inside and responses from the outside, rather than a singular rendition of the city by one or two artists. This has yielded a multifaceted sonic self-portrait of Chicago, conveying through sound the diversity and vitality of the city, and exploring a number of its sonic identities. CSP is a local research project, a collective sound composition, and an opportunity for various communities to share the urban experience through sound. In July 1996, Lou Mallozzi went to Cologne to work for one week with Werner and Rüsenberg. They sequenced the material and produced the finished, eleven-part, fifty-minute audio work. It is important to note that the community self-portraits remained unaltered in this process. Styles clash, and the resulting edges and differences are as much a representation of the reality of Chicago as are many similarities that arise. No such project could ever form a "complete" representation fo such a complex entity and experience as Chicago. The CSP had its premiere public presentation at Randolph Street Gallery in Chicago on September 22 at 2 pm to an audience of 160 people. During the fall of 1996, CSP was presented in its entirety on several Chicago radio stations, and at the Loyola University College Radio Conference. In addition, a CD copy of CSP was available to the public for listening in the gallery; a CD release is planned for 1997. The Chicago Soundscape Project was supported in part by Lufthansa, and received support through ESS from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council, and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. Dawn Mallozzi and Lou Mallozzi, Experimental Sound Studio e-mail: Imallozzi@artic.edu Compact Discs Eurasia: Gregorio Bardini ha studiato flaute taverso presso i conservatori di Manotva e Padova. Ha prodotto il suo primo cd da solista nel 1995, col titolo "Eurasia", composito ed eseguito dall'autore. Strumenti sono: waters and airs, drops on a stove, water kettle on fire, voice, piano, flute (Algeria, Bulgaria, India, Pakistan), ocarina (Venezuela, Italia), mizwab (Tunisia), tin whistle (Irlanda), pastoral wind instruments (Sicilia). Costo LIT 30'000 by prepayment in LIT, US$ o DEM. Distribution: Gregorio Bardini, Vicolo Meridiana 13, I - 46036 Revere (MA), tel. +39 386 46648.
Other-wise: Syllyk / Koji Marutani. This CD presents "Ouroboros 3-4" (1994) by Eric La Casa: "ecological fables whose purpose are not totally in the universe of the fable, nor in ecology. I plainly desire to devleop acoustic histories, in phase with the History of the soundscape." The material is taken from French soundscapes, re-composed, but not subject to any further electroacoustic manipulation. "It is a question of reinvesting the Reality, the Time, as to develop a sensible listening, not a 'hearing', of the world." The resulting poetics of environmental sounds makes listening worth the effort. Koji Marutani's "Scenes 1-2" (1995) are the result of a search for where music 'ends': yet "all I have realised so far, is that we had better release ourselves from various fictions around music by music journalisms and make our ears truly as open to sounds as possible." Distribution and catalogue: La Légende des Voix, 10 rue Versigny, F - 75018 Paris; fax +33 542 239691. People Ich bin Messtechniker in der Thüringer Landesanstalt für Umwelt in Jena, im Referat Schutz vor Lärm und Erschütterungen tätig. Ich arbeite derzeit an einer Dokumentation, wie mit technischen Mitteln der Lärmpegel in einer Stadt gesenkt werden kann. Die alte, oft quietschende und polternde Tram, die von vielen Menschen als Lärmquelle empfunden wird, soll demnächst durch eine neue, "leisere" ersetzt werden. Vom Standpunkt einer städtischen Klanglandschaft aus kann man es dann aber durchaus als Wegfall eines zur Stadt gehörigen und gewohnten Klangs verstehen, der auf Nimmerwiedersehen verschwindet. Daneben möchte ich nicht einfach nur den allgegenwärtigen Verlust der Stille - als Stille bezeichne ich das Fehlen künstlich erzeugter Geräusche - beklagen, sondern angesichts einer rasanten Veränderung und Verschlechterung unserer Klangumwelt das Interesse am Hören und Hinhören uns umgebender Klänge - und damit indirekt verbundenem einfach mal "Stillhalten", im Gegensatz zur gewohnten und praktizierten Hektik - fördern. Dazu möchte ich Klangbilder, die ich hauptsächlich in Thüringer Naturräumen und menschlichen Lebensräumen aufgenommen habe, in Form von Tonvorträgen, unterlegt mit Diaprojektionen, vorführen. Joachim Pakebusch, Magdelstieg 88, D - 07745 Jena Miscellaneous Bzuc'im tis'e! - C'eská hudební spolec'nost Within the Czech Society for Music a commission of specialists is working about the so-called music ecology. The members of the commission are looking for contacts with people and institutions who are working about the same topic. Im Rahmen der Tschechischen Musikgesellschaft arbeitet eine Gruppe Fachleute, die sich mit der sog. Musikökologie befassen. Sie sucht Freunde und Institutionen, die sich derselben Problematik widmen, um mit ihnen Kontakre zu knüpfen und Erfahrungen auszutauschen. Contact: C'eská hudební spolec'nost, Janác'kovo nábr'ez'í 59, CZ - 150 00 Praha 5, tel. +42 253-0868 and -1582
Environmental noise Susan L. Staples has recently published an article "Human response to environmental noise. Psychological research and public policy", American Psychologist 51(2) 1996, 143-150. From the abstract: A research-based, policy-directed argument is made for increasing psychologist's involvment in environmental noise research. Federal policy problems are related to the governments reliance on limited data from a dose-response model and the neglect of key psychological factors that mediate annoyance and that identify subgroups that may need protection from stress-related health effects, and the relationship of perceived control to public response.
|