Part 2: Reading
Stairwell of Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa
Details of Exploration:
A series of practices for structuring an experiment in collective reading in a public space. A reading practice exploring the sounding of voices over five floors of the building, the horizontal register of market square shifted to a vertical register.
Prompt: Find a place on one of the landings of the stairwell. At a designated moment, begin reading the texts that you had written in the morning session aloud, beginning with Acousmatic. Allow space for silence and for listening to the others’ reading. Continue until you reach the end of the text, then remain silent.
PART 1: MARKET SQUARE, Vaasa, June 2022
Details of exploration:
Prompt: A period of writing in response to the prompt Acousmatic.
Duration: 30 minutes writing.
Location/Position: Sitting close by to each other near the statue, towards the perimeter of the square.
PART 3 : RECORDING
[Headphones are recommended for listening to the recordings]
To the right are recordings of each of us reading our texts generated in response to the prompt, Acousmatic?
Invitation to you — the reader/listener: Explore the sound files by playing, pausing, muting — the files can be played singularly and in combination. We are interested in possibilities of the space — or even textorium — that is opened up in the act of (listening to) reading?
Recorded version of us each reading just one of the texts, which later became the basis of a sound work installed in the stairwell at Åbo Akademi University in October 2022.
Salutorget-Zócalo-Mandi-Kauppatori-Marktplatz-Market Square
3 channel soundwork installed at Åbo Akademi University, campus Academill, October 2022, duration 11min: 25sec.
Humming. Whirring. A steady burr. Background sounds. Rumbling. Sound carries. The sound of vehicles before they come into view.
As I look at the page to write, almost every sound is acousmatic, other than the sound of my pen on the page; the sound of my breath, slowing; the paper in friction with my clothes.
Everything else heard but unseen.
Birdsong.
I look up. Yet without my glasses so many sounds feel acousmatic. I cannot tell the source from which the sounds are made. I strain to ‘see’ but cannot discern a clear origin. I ‘know’ that the origin of the sound is a bird, yet have no evidence as such to corroborate this.
Sounds that ‘now’ are outside my visual range, whose source or origin I cannot see — as I attend to the writing on this page.
A motorbike revs.
Girls chatter.
Birdsong, chirping, like a blinking eye.
Traffic, continuous.
A crow caws or maybe it was a gull’s cry.
Sounds continuous — traffic, chatter (close and far away).
The water fountain, constant trickle.
Birdsong, shrill, insistent.
A slow mumble as if from beneath.
A car beeps.
Still, how do I know? I name the sound, the sound’s origin, but without seeing its source. All these assumptions and guesswork and judgements made from an accumulation of experiences past and remembered sounds.
I close my eyes and try to forget all knowledge of sounds’ origins, try to forget what sounds belong to what source. I close my eyes to just listen. But why the need to close my eyes, for it is not even that I can see the source of sound. Yet even though I cannot ‘see’ — still the open eyes somehow call me towards recognition, towards identification, towards giving things a name.
Or maybe it is that I lack a language for acousmatic sound, for sounds stripped clean of source, dislocated from all originary sense of cause.
Pure sound. Sounds with no history or associations. What language might emerge for invoking such sounds, these sounds with no known originary cause or source.
Not so much without cause, but cause unseen, source hidden or veiled.
Veiling of naming.
A veiled name.
Lack of a sonic language.
A language where there is no agency making the sounding, only the sounding, no cause of sound only sound itself.
Pure sound, pure temporal unfolding.
What language with which to name.
No naming though, for pure sound is in motion, never solidifying into name, for names can often thing, and sound is no thing, nothing.
Attending to the all — a meshwork of manifold sounds. No, no ‘sounds’ for this plural already splits off sound into recognisable parts or separable units.
Only sound, only sound.
In its thickness, thinness, density, sparsity, intensity. Qualities, atmospheres. Sound as a moment unfolding. Registers of movements, of multi-dimensional soundings. Sound as a moving, fluxing, stretching shape or even texture, like a blanket or a fabric or a feeling of a thickened air.
A sonic language, that names only qualities. Crescendo and fermata, risings and dippings, and stilling in the sounding. Yet language seems unfit for such description, or at least my language which lacks the capacity for such nuance, the specific turns of phrase.
I imagine the sound described instead through drawing, through diagramming. Or as sharp pin pricks of bright light, piercing. A ground of dense, dull, ashy, powdery ground. A circling, circuitous line, moving this way and that, ricocheting back and forth, bouncing off one thing then another. This line, that line — entangled, over and over, the one running over the other, one cutting across another, the one picking up the dropped lined of the other and starting over in a different direction.
Am I looking for some system of notation, some way of translating this immaterial, unnameable experience into a form, which I can then further usher into language, or rather something to then let language be led by. A mediating system of lines and dashes and smears and blurs and erasures and scrapes and dustings. Dotting lines and thick streaks.
A visual language unfolds in my imagination now, which I then try to follow into words. Yet in the mediation, I sense the growing distance between words and that which I am seeking to describe. A gap, a spacing, a chasm of inarticulacy. I cannot find a way of connecting without the mediation of the image world.
Sounds stay somehow imperceptible, or rather undescribable, as pure sound. Either they become recognised too quickly, traced back to their source and named; or else, I stumble, and fail to find the adequate words. I imagine now that maybe punctuation alone might be a way of giving an un-language to the un-languable. A marking system of exclamations, indecision, of ellipses, and of sounds sharp, tapering away or of pause.
,,,,,,,,, ‘’’’ ,,,, ‘’’’’’’’ ,, ‘’ // ,,,
,, // ~~~~~~~~~~ ‘’’’’’’’’’’’’’~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ???? ‘’’’ ,,,,’’’’ ~~~~~~~~~~~
::::::::::::::;:;:;:::
No, I would need multiple lines in the one line, almost like a stave, or a way of registering the overlappings and layers. For even the line of writing forces the sounds into some linear sequencing, and I cannot capture the multiple synchronous unfolding.
19:09 / 17° - 30 min
Ding ding ding. Ding a ring ling. Clack tak. Trtrttrtrrtrttrrrtrt. PshrtPshrtPshrt. Roooom roooom a-rooooooooooooooom. Pshtpshshshtshtsht. Liha. Pela. Hava. Vittu. Auta. Parempi. Hahahahahaha. Iiiiiiiiiiii-oi-oletta. Caakaakaaak. Ei ei. Kaveri. Oli. clakt clakt clakt pft ggrggrrghrrg clack clack clack clack iiiñiiñiiñiññiiiñii ymörrö pieni ala natuela ala gggggggg iinininñiiñiiiiñiii tosa kavela “so be it!” grilli gggggggg piu ftttfftftttftttffftttfftftftftf gshgshgsh shuishhhhh prtprtprtpttprt-t t-t-t-t-t-tc oummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ftptf gackgackgackgack! Gack gack gack gack ehm ehm-ehem haló HALÓ Halo? Halo halo halo! Halo halo halo HALO mita vittu halo! Hulu mita video ding ehm-ehm-e--hm uiuuuuuuuuuu talo totta uiuuuuiuuuuuu gack gack gack gack gack gack gack kansa sano talo hahahahahaha piu piu piu piu piu piu piu piu piu piu piu piu piu uiuuu ui iu room room rooooom retort trooooooooom rt rt rt vikko totta kai sompa clack clack clack clack soita mmmmmblabl a mmmmnbla schuuuu gack gack rmrm no-nii halo satana clack clack emma itede ei sisaa ei tai ei mññmññmñññññññ ha HA! Uiuuuu uiuu iu bird pipipipipipipi uiu iu okay pshpshshshsh ui ni niiiiiiiiii ey kenga pow! Ehem! Shhhhushuuuuuhshugsgsgsgsggggggg grilla huomena joka paika no-nii tssssttssts ilila gggggauuu ñgññññññññ ñ ñ ñ ññ ñ ñ ññññ ññ ññññññññññññññ vroooooom vrooooooom vrooooooooom! Vroomoooooom vroooom-vrooooooom vetta pipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipipi o- huomena aaaaaa haha iuiuiuiu ua! Ua! Ua! Ua! Ua pi pi heipa gack gack gk gk gk pfft pft pft pft ik ik ik ik ik vrooooom vrooooooom gack gack gack gack rt t t t t t t t t t rt t t tpi pi pi clack clack clack pi pi piuuuu prt pi piu uiuuuhu aaaaahuuuu
(Is my voice always an acousmatic sound for myself?)
Gack gack gack gack gshshshmmmmmmmmm uhmmmmmmmm rtttttt BAM!
Vögel zwitschern, Menschen plappern.
Krähende Möwen. Nicht verstehen, hören.
To chirp, chirp, chirp.
A seagull is crowing, another one responds.
To crow, crow crow.
Please bear in mind I did not have a better word,
Think of an agitated seagull and how it would sound.
Don’t see, just hear.
I’m not an audio-ornithologist.
What about the labour of an acousmaticist?
The acousmaticist studies the sound of things that can’t be seen.
I’m trying to overcome the I-only-hear-what-I-know.
Trying to overcome the questioning and just-bloody-do.
I can write and hear at the same time,
but I can’t write and observe at the same time.
Young voices on a bike. A chit chat of two girls on the right.
The horn of an ambulance, a motorbike on testosterone.
Why do ambulances carry filmlike traces of other places.
Do Finnish seagulls sound different than British ones.
The acousmaticist, equipped with a mic, is searching for unheard.
species that only exist in recording, species that can never ever be heard again.
Ääni ilman näkyvää lähdettä (akusmaattinen)
Missä tahansa torilla
19.10-19.40
tööttä
askeleita
ääniä
nuoria ääniä
naurua
lintuparvi on siirtynyt kauemmaksi
liikenteen
ääniä yritän erottaa ääniä ryhmässä
sano sille vittu
naurua
röhötystä
mitä se olettaa
naurulokki liikkeessä
pyörän lokasuojan räminä
fat-biken kuminen kosketus
lapsen äksy ”Tule”
varpuset
veden lorina
naurua penkeiltä
äänekäs keskustelu on hiljentynyt sorinaksi
kalalokki
toinen vastaa rääkäisee
huudahdus ”haloo kerro”
polkupyörä kivetyksellä
haloo haloo haloo haloo
Ei kuulu yhtään mitään
Ei yhtään mitään
liikenteen melu etäällä
lipputangon liina
kalalokki kalkattaa
mä luulen kans
eii
tiira
ne on
pärisevä mopo
sun puhelin piippaa
sun puhelimesta ei kuulu mitään
En oo soittanut
kyl mä kuulen
mä koitan soittaa sille
no niin
isompi auto
ei ainakaan multa
veden lorina
varpuset korkeammalla
siritystä oikealta
äänekäs pikkuauton moottori
syvempi moottorin ääni
nii
nää
mä näytän
askeleita
I don't
en kuullut en kuullut lähestyvää naakkaa
etenevä tärisevä ääni
yksittäisen varpusen sirkutusta
varpusten yksitoikkoista sirkutusta pensaissa
ääniä olut terassilla
etäinen hälytysajoneuvo
heippa
etenevä heikko sirinä
tuulen huomaamaton noste
veden lorinaa
äänekkäät keskustelijat ovat siirtyneet muualle
lämähdys
ovi
tärinää
muovipussin rutistus
chats, chitchats, yell
coughs, bells, dodges
triggered, staggered, laughter
striding, ahem ahem-ing
ragged-rugged, flutter-flitter
shift, sway, sting
yearning, whispering, trudging
flinging, calling, telling
giggling, fighting, roaming
stopping, speeding, yawning
meeting, kindling, burning
telling, holding, trembling
squishing, spraying, streaming
water, impatience, amore
pulling, wetting, wringing
swarming, smiling, seeing
staring, gazing, avenging
grovelling, disagree
aflutter, paper, swoons
shivering, distance, pleasure
shivering, guessing, hopping
clouding, creaking, tittering
rolling, burbling, wrangling
crowd, wind, scattering
twittering, alarming, leaning
opening, joining, startling
slowly, roving, smoking
faltering, freaked out