My work investigates perception – and listening in particular – as an active, participatory, multi-modal activity which is distributed throughout a variety of human and non-human agencies. By interrogating points of intersection between the conceptual and sensorial, the psychological and psychophysical, as well as conscious, bodily and mechanical dimensions of the listening experience, I aim to draw the viewer’s awareness towards undiscovered facets of their own listening. In my recent work, I exclusively use objects from the world of commercial sound reproduction technologies. Disrupting their technical and economic functions, thus nullifying their potential as instruments of mass communication, these objects are transformed into sculptural sound- producing centerpieces. Through the use and subtle perversion of communication technologies, I aim to reveal their material agencies as prosthetic technologies-of-listening, while in turn allow reflection on the material agency of our own bodily "technologies" of listening. Arranging these objects into three-dimensional reconfigured listening situations, I create spaces for aesthetic and conceptual contemplation of sound, listening, sonic technologies, and the manners in which these elements are at constant interplay.
Sound
Freshmania
Sebastian Frisch (DE) researches and creates works as an artist, musician, and developer. He makes use of a diverse set of media technologies to create immersive experiences and discover possible connections between the digital and the palpable. His main interest belong to the fields of sound, space and acoustic ecology. Sebastian studied Sound Art and Computer Science at Salzburg University of Applied Sciences and graduated recently from the ArtScience Master’s program at the Royal Conservatory and the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague.
Experimental Recordings from the Volta Laboratory
A partnership between the Smithsonian Institution, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Library of Congress has recently demonstrated that current technologies can play back experimental recordings made in Washington DC between 1881 and 1885 by the Volta Laboratory Associates. With the support of a Lemelson Center Fellowship and the help of curator Carlene Stephens, I spent approximately ten weeks between October and December 2011 studying all of the experimental sound recordings preserved in the collections of the National Museum of American History. By combining direct artifactual evidence with laboratory notebooks and other written sources, I’ve been piecing together a more comprehensive history of the Volta group’s work in recorded sound than has been available in the past, as well as identifying the place of many individual recordings within it. Here’s what I’ve concluded so far about the six specific recordings played back as part of the recent pilot project.
The Creative Audio Archive
The Creative Audio Archive (CAA) is a Chicago based center for the preservation and investigation of innovative and experimental sonic arts and music. CAA is an initiative of the Experimental Sound Studio (ESS), formed in response to growing concerns over the general state of historical preservation of non-mainstream audio, in particular, recordings, print, and visual ephemera related to avant-garde and exploratory sound and music of the last five decades.
3D Printed Record
In order to explore the current limits of 3D printing technology, I've created a technique for converting digital audio files into 3D-printable, 33rpm records and printed a few functional prototypes that play on ordinary record players. Though the audio quality is low -the records have a sampling rate of 11kHz (a quarter of typical mp3 audio) and 5-6 bit resolution (less than one thousandth of typical 16 bit resolution)- the songs are still easily recognizable, watch the video above to see the process and hear what the records sound like. Also check out my laser cut records, made on wood, paper, and acrylic.
William Basinski
William Basinski (born 1958) is an avant-garde composer based in New York.[1] He is also a clarinetist, saxophonist, sound artist, and video artist. Basinski is best known for his four-volume album The Disintegration Loops (2002–2003), constructed from rapidly decaying twenty-year-old tapes of his earlier music.[2]