Tag Archives: research

Thinking on Essay Ideas

Initially, I wanted to write on music’s place within sound art, and problematise the literature on dance music. I found that when reading Simon Reynold’s Energy Flash, there was much focus on the drugs culture of early rave music; the book was written very anecdotally, yet is taken as an academic source for documentation of early rve music and culture.

However, when reading modern readings in general, I found them to be centred around the social culture of the topics in which they speak on. I came to realise that whilst I still problemetise Reynold’s writing on UK dance music, I am now in recognition that the way in which academic writing has progressed into the twenty first century, more social and cultural observations are made, and there is less of a focus on technical research.

This means that the way modern works in art are written into history from this new more culturally focussed lens. This allows us to use these resources as research into social perspectives of issues. However, it could also begin to seperate newer art forms from older ones, disallowing them to exist in certain canons.

We can problematise this particuarly in the case of black sound art. Whilst my intial interest was to write within the topic of dance music, I came to read Teklife / Ghettoville / Eski: The Sonic Ecologies of Black Music in the Early 21st Century. Actress’s practice as a producer felt akin to the way in which sound artists create their sound. Well, Actress is litteraly using sound as his median, why isn’t he considered a sound artist? I thought about how the term “sound art” has been presented to me by educators and experiences as a very broad term, with sound art being able to be considered visual art in many cases. If sound art is a fluid art form, how can we explain its undeniable exclusions of certain artists from its canon? I beleive that the fundamental reasoning for this is the way that soubnd art, and art in general, have become academic practices; the study of them in order to validate oneself as an artist, the mass inaccessibility of historical readings or knowledge on practices.

When choosing to study sound art, I wasn’t sure what it even was- to be honest I’m still not sure what it actually even is. We had Jose telling us in first year that music was NOT to be created within the course, an overall feeling of dislike for structured music from the educators on the course. I thought about Actress speaking on his own music in Sonic Ecologies: “I wanna hear form, I wanna hear structure”. I thought about how I, too, want to hear form and structure. There is something about rhythm that feels like I inhabit it within my body, where music without a clear sense of direction or groove, I feel detached from. Does this mean I’m not a sound artist? Maybe. But I would like to propose the idea of sound art as litteraly any art situated around sound. And would like to further propose the idea that exclusions of partciular artists from its canon is due to sound art’s position within academia.

When chossing to study sound art, I looked to Berlin based artist Klein, from South London. I percieve her art as sound art. Maybe it is not, but then we must unpack why. I don’t have a statistic or anything to prove it, but I know that there is a clear exclusion of black artists from the sound art realm. I see artists who created very musical works, such as Harold Budd or even Brian Eno becoming main proponents on the topic, yet Actress’s avante garde experimintalism with field recordings, isn’t even considered sound art. Isn’t what he does quite litteraly the definition of ecological sound art? I believe that the barriers put in place in what is and isn’t considered sound art are institutional barriers; with instituitional racism being the root of the black exclusion. Therefore, I have decided to us ethe opportunity of writing this essay to speak on the reasons for exclsuion and highlight the issue.

Audio Paper Script: Introduction Draft 1

*Record crackling*
Narator: A turntable is an abstraction of the earth- a constant cycle rotating steadily in one direction, and the records- the life that inhabits the earth; they have endings, and once one record ends, the next one is played. The music may end, but the facilitation doesn’t. Analog sound may be connected to the earth more than we think about when using analog instruments. Whilst digital developments in sound distribution may be the path of the future, the A side of this audio paper demonstrates and provides an argument for why vinyl culture will have a much greater historical and cultural impact. 

As a turntablist DJ, I view my artform as storytelling, using records to evoke and heal feelings within those listening, grounding the sound in one type of music whilst creating an abstractified journey with the sound design of the selection; this presentation of music which I liken to the electronic empowerment of the turntable. Turntables, like much analog equipment, are connected to the mixer or amplifier through RCA cables. {explain small science behind RCA cables in terms of earth wire, unbalanced etc} {link this to the way in which i present music}. {quick demonstration of a set I would do}. To achieve this feeling of grounding and journey within my sets, I value the importance of crate digging- arguably the main practice keeping vinyl culture alive today. A lifelong practice which {insert name of interviewee} thinks of as {insert extract of interview describing crate digging} {continuation of extracts from the interview}

As is immediately obvious to any reader, this frist draft at a script is a clear failure. It starts off promising, with a “stage direction” being given immediately, showing that there is life and thought going into the journey of the audio. However, with the topic of the audio paper being completely centred around turntablism, it was really the only sound effect that was reasonable to be inserted. It felt futile, only writing this once, and / or having it feature in the audio paper only once. Regardless, the opening of the script is still strong- written somewhat poetically, it allows the reader to feel the same adoration for turntablism as I, giving them a deeper interest into the topic.

However, great adoration of the topic doesn’t equal great execution of education on said topic. The first problem I stumbled into was that I couldn’t find research to justify my points. I searched endlessly for an article or academic explanation of the science behind RCA cables, what each component means and carries. Because of this, I wasn’t able to make the metaphorical link between the art and the technical set up of turntablism. It also greatly disheartened me from trying to look for the science behind earthing wires. The second great barrier I came accross was that I wasn’t able to insert a demonstartion of a set I would do, as the quality of recording was far too poor- it would seem as thought the connection on my needles for the turntables don’t pick up effectively whilst recording, though they seem fine to be used live. Whilst a solution around this would be to book a studio to carry out the recording, most commercial studios don’t have turntables, and the ones that do were booked too far ahead and would hinder the process of completing the audio paper. The final problem that occured is that I couldn’t find an interviewee in the time I thought I would be able to. The turntablists I am in contact with who would have provided wisdom on this topic were far too busy touring / gigging / just working. Most people don’t have time to be interviewed for merely a university project.

However, just because I cannot find acadmeic texts to support knowledge that I already have, doesn’t mean I cannot include it to some degree. It may be hard to justify my topic because of this, which will push me to use emotive language and tone when delivering the audio paper.