There is an “invisible world” around us. In fact, there are countless different such worlds if one thinks about it — whether aspects of life that we may not know enough about to see (for example, complex animal ecosystems viewed by an artist) or aspects of life that exist beyond the bounds of what is normally physically possible for us (such as sounds which cannot be physically heard by humans). Looking for ways to interact with the “invisible world” of the sound domain holds many keys for unlocking the ways in which composers can meaningfully interact with the world around them — and interact with the truths that lie within themselves.
Sound artist Peter Cusack claims that the integral experience of using sound to decipher a space is that all sound gives context and information about physical places and the events that have occurred there, and that these sounds provide context that are completely unique from visuals or language[1] — putting sound in a distinct category that can help us to access “invisible worlds” through ways that speak to who we are as individuals.
This fuels my choice to interact with this world in a musical context. As sound artist and composer Phillip Samartzis notes, the choice of interaction with a specific place and space in a musical context is a deeply revealing choice — one that invites a view into the artist’s focus just as much as it invites a view into a perhaps neglected and hidden “invisible world”:
“…field recording opens itself up to interrogation, as the captured sounds and spaces are a window to the recordist’s personal preoccupations, memories and subjective perceptions. Equally, field recording seems to carry with it a responsibility to educate and/ or raise awareness, both individual and collective, about the importance of our often overlooked auditory environment.”[1]
This concept of the artist’s “personal preoccupations” with a space are particularly intriguing to my research, as the choices that the artist makes can continue to peel away layers of this “invisible world.” Though much work done by composers and artists to transport a physical space in a musical context has focused on standard field recordings, there is much room for these spaces to be engaged with in a non-standard context through the use of different recording techniques. In my work, this interaction extends to recordings made with electromagnetic field microphones, hydrophones, and geophones. Previous works of mine have similarly focused on the translation of physical objects to musical ones in more direct ways.
[1] Phillip Samartzis, “The nature of sound and the sound of Nature,” in Antarctica: Music, sounds and cultural connections, ed. Bernadette Hince, Rupert Summerson, and Arnan Wiesel (Canberra: ANU Press, 2015), 148.
These concepts continue when considering the ways in which space can be transported. The introduction of players in the context of a musical performance (a central part of my work) adds a layer of commentary to any recording, but it is just as important to consider the ways in which the transportation of physical space through sound does not have to simply involve one manner of auditory recontextualization. An example from my work demonstrates this with a piece for electromagnetic field recording and ensemble where, over the course of the performance, the tape moves from being played over speakers to being sent to a piano’s strings by way of a transducer. The physical space of the field recording — already transported to a new auditory environment — thus continues to shift over time in a new, dynamic physical space.