Tag Archives: sound therapy

Creating Community in the Interspace: Sonic Experiments with Josie Silverman (MIDBRIB)

Towards the end of 2023, I became close with Josie Silverman, an artist working in UK dance music scenes under the alias “MIDRIB”. Our first interaction based on sound, outside of our usual practice of DJing, was a women’s only noise and sound making session that she organised at Premise studios.

The entire session was undocumented, as we felt as though it would be invasive to have a camera or audio recording device monitoring us for the few hours that we were there. Josie initiated the session with the intent of using sound as a therapeutic tool, using sound to release and abstractify trapped emotions. Quantum theory states that “observation affects reality”, meaning that when a proton, or particle, is observed, its behaviour is changed. Based on this, we can understand observational devices, such as that of a camera or audio recording device, to affect the quality and authenticity of any sound produced within this session.

Four of us participated in the session; Josie used korg volcas, another person used an accordion, and another person had a few different synthesisers I didn’t recognise. I brought along the loop and granular pedals I had been experiementing with independently. There was a bass guitar and an sm58 microphone that were used by all of us. Everything ran into a mixing desk, and we had a different person opperate the mixing desk in rotation, with the person in that role able to control what sounds could be heard and at what level. We also sat down to meditate together, and discussed relevant litterature to our interests; Josie introduced me to the book Music, Emotion and Trancing- Deep Listeners by Judith Becker.

Having known Josie for a while now within the DJ scenes that I opperate in, it was refreshing to immerse ourselves in an abstract, non-musical sound making process.

Our second non-DJ based sound interaction was at her house in February, where we had planned to make some dance music tracks, but instead, had a 40 minute experimental jam session. I brought my flute and my SP-555, and Josie was using a guitar, pedals, and for a small amount of time, a drum machine. The process felt to be cathartic, with most of the sounds not making sense. We were simply releasing a sense of “detunedness” within ourselves. But although a lot the sounds didn’t make sense, there were some parts of the session that sounded pleasing to the ear, and had a sense of musicality. We decided to extract some of these small ideas, and do what we had originally planned to do- create a dance music track.

It was still experimental in nature, using a sound that wa played on the bass guitar as the “kick drum”, and then not using any other percussive elements.

Overall, this proved to be a much more enjoyable method of creating music. There was an artistic process behind it which involved improvisation, allowing us to immerse ourselves within our instruments that we may not typically use, and to become much more emotionally connected to the project. The outcame gave us a plethora of samplabale material, and a rhyhmic (yet lacking in percussiveness) dance track that could potentially be played in the rave if it were to go through mixing and mastering processes. It was also nice to be able to enjoy a more artistic method of creating music at the same time as one thats more closely tied to my practice as a DJ in rave spaces.

This made me think again of my installation at Gallery 46 last year, where I created a film called Circular Intersections, exploring the idea of the art world and underground music scenes, particuarly the dance music scene, as being interconnected. It is important for me to develop this idea into something more solid, where I can conceptualise this idea. I am going to do this with a new research project entitled “exploring the interspace”, where I will explore, document, and create spaces where the art world and underground music spaces can coexist, building communities surrounding these spaces.

Sound Art in Practice: Farah Mulla

Farah Mulla is a multi media artist based in Goa. Having studied geology at university, Farah became interested in the relationship between science and sound, not seeing them as different from one another. Using her background in science, Farah investigates the effects of sound on the psyche.

“From birth to death we are always immersed in sound”

Whilst studying at Cambridge, Farah began recording herself, and listening back to these recordings. These came to cultivate her installation piece, “Oral Mirror”.
“Oral Mirror” was situated in the space of a dark room, playing sounds on a loop until the overall sound becomes a drone. Simultaneously, Farah has started to develop tumours on her face, which I interpreted to be a factor in pushing her engagement with research around sound healing.

Whilst in the Himalayas, Farah built an installation in the mountains featuring a plethora of plastic water bottles which creates a large dome (pictured above). The bottles were intentionallt tuned, so that sonic feedback was created, which depended on the wind. This installation was therefore also a performance of chance, with the sound being produced inestimatable. Farah’s intentions behind the piece was to raise awareness around waste, making this piece an environmental statement or a piece that is situated in ecology, again linking her work back to science.

Whilst in the Himalayan mountains, Farah also became immersed in research surrounding sound baths and sound therapy. There are claims to be made about sound baths, such as that they “can cure cancer”- but this is a statement that stands with no quantative proof. Practices in sound therapy are based around the idea that every organ in the human body vibrates at a different frequency, and that disease is stemmed from our organs becoming out of tune with the frequency it is meant to vibrate at. Farah’s research surrounding these ideas led her to create a short film due to the involvement of a film director working with ASMR.

It is interesting to see how Farah’s practice as both a scientist and a sound artist allows for her interests to feed into her art, and her art to feed into her interests.

Whilst Farah has created many beautiful art installations, she became disengaged with art due to her comfortablity of gaining “results” or “finding” within her scientific background. She figured out a way to use sound and science together for the benefit of people with disabilities. Working with the concept of neauroplasticity, Mulla refurbished circuits from her installations to create materials to help develop disabled people’s, particuarly children’s, cognitivie abilities. Within this, Farah uses her work with frequencies of sound emulating touch. Farah now works in accessibility within the arts, working with organisations to alter modes of therapy.

How can I insoproprate or reinterpret Farah’s work within my own?

Like Farah, I am interested in creating installations, so I was very drawn to her dome of bottles in the Himalayas. However, what drew me more into the concept was the idea of chance that has been incorporated, rather than the ecological reasoning for the artwork.

Aside from the creation of art and installations, I am very interested in looking further into the research Farah took part in involving the sound baths.

The use of gongs historically have been of music and therapy in the East of the world. The same thinkinng behind the therapuetic use of gongs and sound has been adapted to provide cancer threatments, in high-intensity focused ultrasound (Caner Wellness, 2023). Whilst this form of treatment is not exactly the same as music therapy for healing, it is clear that sound waves are “capable of rapidly and efficiently separating circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood” (Cancer Wellness, 2023).

Whilst gongs may not be scientifically proven to cure cancer, they are shown to be a tool of relief and mental therapy, providing “a sense of peace and calming and release” (Cancer Wellness, 2023 for cancer patients. And if this form of therapy can be beneficial to canceer patients, it is definitely benefical to all people.

I am lucky enough to have been gifted a bonang by my brother in law, an Indonesian instrument used as part of the Gamelan. The bonang is a group of gongs, all tuned at different pitches.

I am going to make it my aim to learn and understand the cultural and historical significance of the bonang, and later adopt it as a tool in my sound practice. How that will transpire, I am not sure yet, but I am excited to see where this journey goes.