Lucia Chung

Lucia H Chung is a Taiwanese artist based in London, UK.

She performs and releases music under the alias ‘en creux’ where the sound creation springs from her fascinations in noise generated via feedback on digital and analogue equipment, and her role as a ‘mediator-performer’ in the multifaceted relationship between the sonic events incurring within the self-regulated system. She also works as a broadcaster and an independent curator at Happened. She has curated and organised residency programmes and music events around the UK and Europe.

Lucia’s presentation talked about her early work and inspirations. She mentions being inspired by the work of Jacob Kirkegaard’s 4 Rooms, a project in which 4 abandoned rooms inside the zone of exclusion in Chernobyl were recorded and played back in the same manner as Alvin Lucier’s “I am sitting in a room”(1970) demonstrating the resonances of the room from their own feedback.

Feedback is something that I will most certainly explore further and already experiment with. Most of my experiments have been done with microphone feedback and filtered oscillators.

There is something about the sound of feedback, its piercing resonance, that has always intrigued me. In a musical sense, guitar feedback has been used intentionally by many influential rock musicians such as Jimi Hendrix, Lou Reed, Robert Fripp. Artists such as Alvin Lucier, Hugh Davies, Steve Reich used feedback in their work.

I also find the location of Chernobyl to be alluring in its unique desolation. I find abandoned places and buildings very aesthetically beautiful when nature reclaims them. This romanticism likely comes from the visual appearance of pillboxes and tank blocks that are dotted around the countryside at home.

There is also the physical alienation of such structures. Monolithic, brutal and utilitarian, they now stand faded, covered in ivy surrounded by seas of stinging nettles. Perhaps less romanticly, a great deal of them seem to become public urinals graffitied with obscenities.

In the future, I wish to explore such structures in their dilapidation and create a work from them.

Radio

Over the week I returned home for a couple days and picked up an old Roberts R606-MB radio (c.1974) that was collecting dust in our old chicken storage barn.

Listening to the radio made me think about the following things.

  • The detachment of physicality (regarding modern digital media) and nostalgia
  • The lack of ‘purity’ in the medium and how it effects the listing experience

When listening to the radio, if you intend to listen to a certain broadcast, you are fighting a battle to maintain and find that perfect frequency. Much of what you hear is not what you actually intend to listen to, but is the signal noise of surrounding frequencies.

With digital media, we (generally) take it for granted that when we press play the audio will be flawless, of high quality and will not degrade over time.

Richard Phoenix

Richard is an artist with interests in accessibility, inclusion and imperfection and how art and music can intersect these points, remove barriers and make new forms of normal that include rather than exclude.

Using painting, drawing, music and interaction he works with communities and on his own to try and draw these disparate ideas together.

Currently an artist on the Conditions Studio Programme in Croydon. Richard also works for the learning disability arts organisation Heart n Soul as their creative associate and is the founder and director of not-for-profit organisation Constant Flux, and he plays in several punk bands.

During his virtual visit, Richard focused on the work he did with neurodivergent or, the term he prefers, disabled people. He says this is because he sees that these people are disabled by the limits and accessibility (or lack of) of their environments, whereas he sees the term people with disabilities as putting the responsibility on the affected individual.

As well as his visual art has released the book ‘D.I.Y As Privilege: A Manifesto’ published under Rough Trade Books. In this, he writes about his experience with supporting musicians with learning disabilities and being part of the DIY punk scene, re-evaluating his perception of the culture.

The Fish Police

Richard works with musicians such as Daniel Wakeford, The Fish Police, Beat Express, Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät, Electric Fire and more. He helps to organise the events from the and is involved in helping venues make themselves more accessible.

His presentation made me reflect on how little music I have heard from musicians with learning disabilities and makes me think of how I can make my work more responsible when factoring in other audiences, such as warnings before video and audio playback.

Richard left us with 5 key things to think about in creative projects:

  • People
  • Environment
  • Communication
  • Belonging
  • Sharing

He says to create structures that allow freedom, involve people in decision making from the start and to not focus on the outcome. This supports people to have more agency and control and delevop creativity independently.

I will keep in mind all these things in future group projects.

Graphical Notation

After the sound walk, I created a basic visual representation of the experience. Notations are something I find quite interesting after seeing John Cages ‘Notations’

I thought of the purpose of notation, whenever we create work MIDI in modern DAWs it almost creates its own notation in the form of the piano roll. Can I make a DAW with a more expressive or indeterminate interface, one that is new and does not limit itself to equal temperament? The notation creates the music itself.

Morton Feldman’s Projection II
Brian Eno’s Music For Airports

I found that 2D, on paper, stationary notations are limited. While I was drawing my notation of the sound walk I felt limited in its dimension and lack of fluidity. I felt I could express time and duration on the paper but it felt cumbersome. Maybe animated notation is more useful and practical when we spend more time looking at screens, which allow for such fluidity, than paper.

My initial drawings were done between breaks of the sound walk. I was thinking of the sounds in regards of spaciality rather than on a linear time frame. I thought as my self as a microphone and what directions the sounds where coming from. As you can see in the images, I used a birds-eye/top-down view. This limited the concept of sound from above and below. The other rings surrounding the LR circle show the distance of sound from the microphone. In the middle ground sounds are much more tangible in their spacial placement. Basic colour theory as well as shape could be used to differentiate sounds or even convey mood. Angular shapes have more aggressive attacks, rounder shapes fade in and out. Size determines volume. Lines and gaps rhythm.

Åsa Stjerna

Åsa Helena Stjerna is a Swedish artist who creates site-specific sound installations, exploring sound’s potential and connection to time, place, as well as human/non-human. As a researcher, she is interested in the transformative ability of sound and what it means to make a difference in the era of Anthropocene and Advanced Capitalism.

MARE BALTICUM

Mare Balticum is the artistic outcome of the participation in the EU/Life funded scientific investigation BIAS: Baltic Sea Information on the Acoustic Soundscape. Gathering scientists from six Baltic nations, the project investigated human-induced noise in the Baltic. Deploying thirty-eight hydrophones, recording different locations in the Baltic, these recordings were made at exactly the same moment every hour, each day, for a year; creating a sonic map of the Baltic enabling the scientists to measure the effects of human-induced sound in the ocean.

In the sound installation, each loudspeaker represents a specific place in the Baltic where sound recordings were made. Distinct places bleed into one another in the sound installation, sometimes acting as solitary voices and sometimes as ensembles. Together, they constitute a geographic choreography that invites the visitor to move from place to place.

The area of her work that interested me most was based on sonification.

Sonification is the use of non-speech audio to represent information.

I’m conflicted on my opinions of sonification as an art form.

This is mostly because data, something that is seen as having an ‘objective truth’, is then potentially skewed by an artist’s subjective application of the sonification process, which then has the ability to completely undermine, or even negate the entire concept that is trying to be presented.

For instance, the arbitrary use of setting all the sounds to a scale might make the information more pleasing and recognisable to the listener, but at what point is the meaning of said information lost?

I can certainly see its value as a means of education and creating interest in a field that might otherwise be dismissed as numbers that have no meaning.

An area of sonification that is interesting to me is its potential use in computer games and simulations. It would allow for dynamic, and potentially, interactive sounds based on complex information.

Ancient Chinese Philosophy and Music

China as a nation. The concept of an ancient established kingdom and its claim to the land. The cultural revolution. Removing the past (Four Olds: Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Customs). Encouraged vigilantism.

I read about Yayue, meaning (elegant music), a form of classical music and dance that was performed at the royal court in ancient China. The philosopher Confucius considered yayue to be beneficial music and good, whereas he saw the popular music of the day, termed suyue (uncultivated music) to be decadent and corrupting. Yayue was seen as refined, improving and essential for self-cultivation and symbolised good and stable governance. In Confucius tradition the Guqin, a seven stringed zither, is seen as the instruments of the scholar-official class.

This made me of Jacques Attali’s Noise: The Political Economy of Music and the concept of sound/music in regards to authority and power. Has much really changed in the way we see music?

In some circles, classical music is seen as having a sort of superiority over popular music, is this a result of the perpetuation of the educatated ruling class enforcing what is ‘elegant’ and what is ‘uncultivated’? Perhaps a better word for uncultivated would be uncensored. If the same emotions are felt from 2 different pieces of music, popular and classical, is one seen as more valid than the other, is the value equal?

Western ‘classical’ music is an interesting field for me, from a social standpoint. I do not come from a background of classical musicianship and neither do members of my family. My Dad listens mostly to rock, and my Mum more Alternate/Indie rock. Classical music is seen as something of an sophisticated and intellectual category, as well as elitist. I suppose the same thing can be thought about regarding jazz. Maybe it’s because while the working class labour, the elites dictate what is music and what is not. However, I do enjoy classical music. In my childhood I had compilation of Tchaikovsky that I would listen to in order to fall asleep. Maybe my Mum got me the cd after reading something about the controversial ‘Mozart effect’ of listening to classical music making children smarter, that is no doubt regaled by elitist institutionalists. I didn’t really get into classical music until I started listening to Debussy and Satie, what then introduced me to ‘modern’ composers such as Arvo Part, John Cage, Morton Feldman and the minimal music movement.

The ancient philosopher Mozi denounced anything that was seen as divisive based on the concept of consequentialism. This meant the entire condemnation of music as an extravagance and indulgence, something that serves no useful purpose and may be harmful. This is a stance that I have not come across before due to its intense utilitarianism in regards to the material, but little regard for the pleasures of the individual.

The Taoist branch of philosophy has an emphasis on Tao (“the way”) balance and harmony with nature. Taosim is an interesting mix of philosophy and spiritual tradition, though I would argue that philosophy and religeon/spirituality are much in the same thing. Rooted in folk tradition, Taoist music is seen as a way to bring Yin and Yang into balance during ceremonial rites, and as a way to speak to the gods, to pray for the dead. Yin tones are seen as soft, female, dark, cold and negative while Yang tones are seen as hard, male, light, warm.

Daphne Oram – The Innocents

I recently watched The Innocents (1961), directed by Jack Clayton. It was to my surprise that a few days later, I found out that the sound effects were created by Daphne Oram, whose work on the film was uncredited.

I remember while watching the film that I was very impressed with the sound, something that is often lacking in older films. The reverberant sounds certainly brought the film to life, as well as creating surreal moments of tension that were much more effective than the orchestral elements of the score.

Oram was a pioneering composer and musician known for her work in founding the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (1958) as well as for her development of Oramics, a method of sound synthesis using drawn sound, where 35mm film was drawn upon and transformed into sounds.

She created the music for the play Amphitryon 38 (1957) using a sine wave oscillator, a tape recorder and filters, making the first wholly electronic score in BBC history.

Nicole Raymond – NikNak

Nicole Raymond is a UK based DJ, turntablist, sound artist, composer, producer, tutor, sound engineer and radio presenter who advocates for diverse representation in the music industry, especially within DJ/Turntablism culture and music production realms, and for musician wellbeing/mental health. She runs/curates events such as “Dub Sirens” and “Melanin”, and in 2020 was a winner of an Oram Award.

Nicole’s presentation was energetic and passionate. She talked about representation in the media and how it is important that representation is diverse, criticizing media for portraying a ‘certain type of black British culture’ as opposed to the diversity that exists in reality.

She talked about the creative process of her latest, album Bashi, and how it came to be in a very natural way. She created the field recordings in rural Turkey with a zoom recorder. These recordings were not created with conceptual intent and her trip to Turkey was one to try and clear her mind. It was only after that the feeling of peace became a central theme.

I asked Nicole the following question:

Do you have a favourite ‘hidden gem’ record that you found while crate digging? What’s your favourite genre to search through?

She responded with the recommendation of an EP called Tusk by KLAUS. She elaborated on the culture of crate digging and how she had recently spent more time searching online for music that physical crate digging.

This is something that interests me as I have little experience in the turntable and DJ culture, but do, however, spend time searching online for music that I haven’t heard before. The EP she recommended, a minimal ambient dubstep-inspired record is great and is available below.

Soundwalk

Part One – Experience

Hildegard Westerkamp defines sound walking as “… any excursion whose main purpose is listening to the environment. It is exposing our ears to every sound around us no matter where we are.

Below is a list of some sounds that I noted during the experiences.

Stationary – Train Underpass Tunnel

Forward (panning)

  • Keys. Metallic short sounds, musical.
  • Clothes. Rustling to movement. Like brushed snares
  • Talking, laughing. Intensified vulnerability

Left

  • Quiet car traffic
  • Rattling of larger vehicles
  • Wind

Right

  • Vertical steps. Rhythmic pattern of footsteps.
  • Overground automated announcement. Ordered,Alien.
  • Street ‘noise’. Mid freq hum.

Above

The rumble of the overhead train. Metallic banging. Such a low frequency that the reverberance was felt more than heard.

Sound walk. Sydenham Hill Woods

Below.

  • Crunching rocks, soft forest floor, snapping twigs. Swaying leaves

Above 

  • Rustling leaves in the trees, Birds of all kinds. Rhythmic, melodic, repetitive.
  • Aeroplanes overhead

Forward(left and right)

  • A panting dog, the owner calling from left and right, the dog’s purposeful steps.
  • Child inquiring about us.
  • Clanging metal pipes.
  • Sound System playing music
  • Bicycles chains
  • Crying child in the distance

Behind

  • The water bottle in my bag, sloshing with my steps

Part Two – Reflection

I found the sound walk to be an interesting, complex experience. I found it quite distracting to be walking during the experience and felt like it took away from the experience of listening to the environment. It was as much a challenge in control as a listening task.

The task of listening with my eyes closed is a familiar experience, though I’m public becomes a lot more vulnerable.

In this respect, I preferred the task of listening while stationary as I could focus more on the sounds themselves than the survival instinct of keeping my footing.

After walking for a while it was disorienting to remove the blindfold and to find me in a place, with little sense of how I got there, and what direction I came from.

It helped for me to think of the sound as moving through me rather than me moving in a physical space

During breaks in the walk, I sketched out the sounds shortly after experiencing them. I have included them in a separate entry.

As someone with a somewhat decent memory, it is contrasted by the fact I have never been good with remembering locations. I often remember individual places, like nodes, but seldom remember how to travel from one to another. I wonder if this is something that can be experienced with sounds, as sound marks. Would I know the sound of my kitchen at home? The hum of the heater, the draft under the door? 

The soundscape is something that interests me, I have plans to create a digital soundscape creator at some point. Where you can plot a journey on a map (like with Google Maps) and travel through the map, experiencing generated sounds based on the location, such as weather, altitude, population, wilderness, biome and language. Like a travelling caravan on the silk road of sound.

Listening to sound in complete darkness is usually my preferred method. It allows me to listen with no distraction, and to mentally imagine and ‘visualise’ the sound. Not necessarily the source of the sound, but some abstract scene or narrative.

This likely stems from my childhood, and general sleep patterns.

I’ve always struggled to fall asleep, often due to the fact I listen intensely. At night, and in the quiet, I’ve always heard a high pitch noise that would keep me up listening to it. And so, since my early childhood, I would always listen to music, or audiobooks as a distraction from this sound. I’m not confident in what the sound is but it could be linked to the hyperacusis that had had when I was younger.

Listening in the dark is also something I do when I have migraines. I’ve suffered from migraines since my early teens, and the only way for them to end is if I throw up or fall asleep.

When I have a migraine, my senses are at their extreme. Sight is simple enough to negate with, closed curtains and eyes, but Sound is more difficult. It feels as though somebody has boosted the low frequencies and I focus extremely hard on any rhythms I can to regulate my breathing. Needless to say, I am thankful when I do not have migraines.

Sound in Japan

A painting by director Akira Kurosawa

Artists

Yoko Ono, Ryoji Ikeda, Merzbow (Masami Akita), Isao Tomita, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Satoshi Ashikawa, Yasunao Tone

Movements that interest me

Kankyō Ongaku – ‘Environmental music’

As someone interested in minimal and ambient music, the work of musicians such as Hiroshi Yoshimura interests me. Inspired by the Fluxus movement, Satie, Brian Eno and Harry Partch. His music has come popular over recent years due to the mystical algorithm of Youtube. Most of Yoshimura’s music was made with a Fender Rhodes layered on top of field recordings. The use of pentatonic scales avoids any clashes that make the music sound open and, to me, captures the essence of Mono no aware.

Mono no aware
Meaning "the pathos or sentiment of things"
It is often translated as the 'ahness' of things, falling cherry blossoms, the changing of seasons, an awareness in the transient beauty of life.

Something I’ve found interesting is that Yoshimura’s music has been categorised as New Age in some resources that I have been researching him. The term New Age is something I very much dislike. My dislike of the term is the appropriation of the environmentalist attitude along with spiritual exoticism, skewed for the sake of commercialisation and marketing.

Japanoise and Glitch Music

To me, noise and glitch music is the manifestation of the Japanese concept of Wabi-Sabi.

Wabi Sabi
An appreciation in the beauty of imperfection, incompletness and impermanance. Influenced by Shinto and Buddhism.

Works such as Yasunao Tone’s Solo for Wounded CD show what can be created through the physical distortion of a physical medium. It was created by purposely distressing a CD. I personally do not get much emotional satisfaction from the sounds achieved, however, they are unlike anything I had heard before, and as sounds, themselves could be used in compositions.

The history of noise music and glitch is routed in the politics, and economy of post World War 2 Japan. After the nationalism of WW2 imperialism, Japan was occupied by American forces and the nation was rebuilt economically, shifting away from a war economy to a consumer-based one. The Japanese economical miracle, as it is known, caused an economic boom in which Japan become the 2nd largest economy in the world. One of the largest industries was/is the field of electronics (Casio, Yamaha, Sony, Akai, Nikon, Fujifilm, Nintendo, etc). I imagine this had a direct impact on the accessibility of electronics and the culture surrounding these scenes.

Ainu folk music

The Ainu are the indigenous people of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, including Hokkaido Island, Northeast Honshu Island, Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula and Khabarovsk Krai, before the arrival of the Yamato Japanese and Russians.

Gagaku is a type of Japanese classical music that was historically used for imperial court music and dances. It was established in the Heian period (794-1185) and derived from Chinese Yayue music