Alvin Lucier, I am sitting in a room, 1969

A Room articulated by speech, a space articulated ,expressed, qualified, and defined by sound.

This experiment deeply questions the common understanding of space and sound. It approaches space not only as a purely visual enclosure/volume, but also sound as some sort of material – instead of a purely ethereal substance. Sound is spatial as much as space is sonic. Both notions are fundamentally connected in sensorial and corporeal terms. Sound constitutes a direct and intuitive way to experience and understand a space, even in the case of ordinary environments, which do not present any particular sound quality (long reverberation time, for example).

The “sound print” of a space will immediately provide us with accurate information regarding dimensions, proportions, distances, scale, materials, textures and, of course, present activities. We might not be able to describe all of this information with words, but we certainly understand it in perceptual terms, and thus act consequently. This is a common, embodied knowledge acquired through continuous -and unnoticed- daily spatial explorations.

Lucier aims, in this experiment, at materialising a part of this knowledge, at freezing it so that we are able to observe it from outside and become aware of it. The result is the sonic image of a space articulated by speech, depicted by a voice entering into resonance with the space. A voice given to the space to be reflected and mirrored, according to its own physical body -i.e. its sonic resonant properties. Room acoustics are sonified and translated into aural harmonic structures, instead of traditional silent graphs. Why is acoustics so often such a silent science when, in actual fact, it deals with sound?

There is in this piece a link with common acoustic concepts and tools, such as the impulse-response, which aims at characterising sonically the potential aural answer of a space. Potential in terms of containing a simultaneous response to all audible frequencies, all possible sonic events and voices - Lucier’s among them. The impulse-response contains an objective “universal” answer to all past, present or future sounds able to excite the space. It involves analysing and predicting and, as a consequence, all cases must be represented.

In the case of Lucier, the main focus is not on representation, but on the process. It is on the performative act itself as a means to explore our relation to, and presence in, the space. Thus, a subjective relation, a dialogue is established with the space. Through the voice, the performer is invited to sonically occupy and inhabit the space, in a ritualised sequence of repetitions. Through this ritual, the textual dialogue progressively fades out in favour of the space. Time, which is so accurately measured in the impulse-response,  here becomes an irrelevant dimension: the pure frame of an experiential process that will, by the end, simply freeze.

Can Lucier’s results be considered scientific in acoustic terms? Yes, certainly, even if this was probably not his main intention. However, the work still faithfully depicts how a space responds to a voice in spectral terms, producing a characteristic sound-print, and  a form of identity.

Hanna Hartmann, Färjesånge, 2002

Changing scale, changing space.

Recording distance (with a microphone or with our ears) modifies the listening focus and scale, whilst setting a specific frame of observation i.e., a particular sonic space and experience. We can zoom in and out, amplify and observe in detail the structure of a sound, or simply get a general sonic image of a context. Recording necessarily means framing, selecting, restricting; recording is certainly not a neutral representation of a sonic environment. On the other hand, however, neither is listening. There main difference being that whereas with listening in situ we can decide at anytime to change the focus of our attention; when listening to a recording, this floating attention certainly takes place also, but the number of choices have already been dramatically restricted.

In the case of “close micing”, and contact microphones in particular, there is literally no external physical space left on the recording. It is the pure internal resonance of the material in vibration. However, in perceptual terms, this will certainly not be interpreted as an absence of space, particularly in the case of sounds of natural origin. A new space will emerge by transforming this internal material resonance into some form of spatial reverberation. Our perception is required, once more, to make sense of this material according to our sonic experience. A situation that implies imagining a physical environment in which to place these sounds: a space compatible with what we hear.

At this juncture, internal resonance can naturally become spatial reverberation, or matter converted into space – resulting in an intriguing transformation of nature and scale for the sake of meaning.

This confusion of internal and external space is a phenomenon that has been carefully explored by sound artists, such as Hartman, in her performances and electroacoustic pieces. We are invited here to experience materials in vibration from the inside, while we mentally and experientially project a coherent space for them, transforming a string into a large metallic hangar, or a piece of wood into a reverberant hall, in which we are contained and listening. The resultant space expands and contracts flexibly, transforming materials and dimensional properties in tune with primary resonances.

Max Neuhaus: Times Square, 1977

In these imaginary places that I build, often the moment the listener first walks into the space, it is not clear that a sound is there. But as you begin to focus, a shift of scale happens. At first you hear what could almost be a room sound, which then suddenly becomes huge. As you enter into it, you move into another perception of space because of the change of scale. (…)

Neuhaus, 1992: Notes on Place and Moment

The possibility and challenge of “permanence”. To build a sound that could naturally be a part of a place, almost plausible and contextually coherent. A sound that earns its right to be left in place as integrated with its conception.

I often make a sound which is almost plausible within its context when you first encounter it. The point where a person realizes that it is not plausible is when he jumps into the piece; he’s swimming on its own from then on. (…) Neuhaus, 1992

Sound interventions tend in general to be ephemeral; emerging in urban contexts as evidently -present and territorial guests. They generally last for a few days or weeks, before being finally dismantled. Within this paradigm of signing place with sound, and re-signifying it, the added material often enters into conflict with everyday life and ordinary environments. Sound is, by default, intrusive and disrespectful, and citizens can easily feel threatened by this ubiquitous presence, entirely escaping their control. Just a ghost – only an idea of a potential sound to come, may be enough to raise polarized feelings and reactions.

Taking care of a context, entering into dialogue with the place, is a complex and subtle exercise requiring accurate listening skills and contained preconceptions. Any physical context can be approached in terms of confrontation or collaboration -not to be confused with shyness-, working against or with the place, as well as everything in between. Neuhaus was interested in establishing an open conversation with a context, and a form of exchange which stays away from imposing meanings or determining reactions. It is more a matter of re-orienting perception towards already existing qualities. In this sense, it is a practice in friction with soundscape aims, even when the methods are in general far more “active” than orthodox soundscape conventions.

I see these works not as definers of a single frame of mind for all individuals, but as catalysts for shifts in frame of mind. I am not concerned with a specific individual's frame of mind. Neuhaus, 1992

Neuhaus’ attitude and methods are particularly relevant to today’s urban sound design questions and practices. In a discipline recently concerned with attention masking (or information masking, instead of the previously practiced energy masking: Nilsson 2010) as well as subtle sensorial interventions, his invitation to focus on listening and perception is not only inspiring, but also entirely operational: often without need of alien and highly expressive elements, just involving the placing of an accent on a particular quality, a nuance within a local sonic layer. A well-affirmed sonic presence, independent of its intrinsic quality, could just be perceived as noise if not in sympathy, and in resonance with place.

Luc Ferrari, Presque Rien ou le lever du Jour au Bord de la Mer, 1967

L’escalier des aveugles, 1991

Presque rien. The concept of almost nothing.

A case of extreme freedom; free to travel among schools, styles, categories, stylistic concepts and materials. The sound material itself seems to be the main operative force and guide. Soundscape avant la lettre, in Presque rien n.1, no scientific aims are claimed or better, they essentially not considered or sought. A freedom that frustrates the efforts of categorisation. All sound materials are welcome just as they are - noisy backgrounds included. The focus is on the general atmosphere as well as on casual actions and sonic objects passing by the microphone. An exercise in keeping our senses open, ready to capture and collect casual scenes and atmospheres, and reflect upon them and with them. Without prior planning, other than embracing, “commenting”, and enhancing these found materials themselves (Schaeffer’s theory of «faire et entendre» (Gayou 2008), to do and to understand), entering into open dialogue with them.

As an audience of this hörspiel, of this movie for the ears, we are invited to be a part of these scenes. To plunge into a material intimately related to our everyday experiences, even when openly reworked and transformed.

We are simultaneously so close, while so far from a traditional soundscape approach. Ferrari is not trying to offer a relevant and coherent image of a place (concept of sonic identity). He is certainly not searching for the soundmarks and other characteristic traits of place. He is not playing the role of a researcher, as is sometimes the case in the soundscape tradition. The materials collected simply happened to be there at a given moment, being accidentally captured and recorded. A few minutes later the piece would have been entirely different, exploring other casual materials and ideas. Ferrari is in fact quite attached to concepts such as “anecdote / anecdotic music”, which is not necessarily representative of a local sonic identity or other attempts at a more scientific representation of place. He is in fact openly focused on a subjective and situated experience, being himself often sonically present, though his voice, triggering questions and dialogues (again, far from a more classic soundscape approach). Ferrari is part of the recorded scenes together with other human presences. He is in dialogue with or listening to, thus inviting us to an almost disturbing level of intimacy.

Beyond Cardiff’s soundwalks there is, in general, little weight given to these sonic anecdotes. The point is not what is being said and its relevance, but more how is it being shared: the accents, colours, nuances and rhythms. Furthermore, the human, social and cultural encounters that are taking place. It really is about almost nothing, i.e. about life in the best of Mediterranean traditions, just chatting, meeting each other, sharing irrelevant but charming anecdotes and unpredicted encounters. Would it be possible to talk about a form of sonic naturalism?

Finally, if I have worked a lot on the anecdotal or the narrative, which are also time-related subjects, I have used this data in an intuitive way. The exploitation of concepts is my way of being more… “conceptual”. And so, I show how “Les Anecdotiques” have nothing to do with the narrative and how this work is explicit in fact, in the difference between narrative and the anecdotal. And so, time continues its course, renewed every time.

Ferrari, notes on Les Anecdotiques, 2002

Barry Truax, Earth & Steel, 2013

Space, amplitude, cavernous sonorities and dimensions - materials in friction, in resonance.

Truax aim here is to combine the artistic and the scientific. The soundscape approach has always contained, from its very origins, a stimulating mix of disciplines and methods: composition techniques encountering landscape, together with urban and architectural questions and tools. In Earth & Steel, a collection of historical sonic materials and actions are given a new spatial context, spatialised, and placed “virtually” in a new physical environment to resonate and enter into dialogue with. Convolution techniques allow this bizarre alloy of delocalized matter and architecture, departing from an impulse response i.e., a sonic print of a space characterising its resonant properties at a specific listening position. A virtual sonic space is created in this encounter between a sound -an action- and its spatial presence, between friction and reflection. A space that our experience will give a physical dimension to, as well as a material description, derived from its resonant qualities. Volumes will be aurally defined, surfaces placed, scaled and oriented, and materials will be applied on them.

Such a complex and abstract operation happens instantaneously, due to the fact that it is experience-based. We have experienced similar spaces before, we were there, in place –  with our bodies, our ears, providing a necessary reference point and scale. No spatial reconstruction would be possible without immersing ourselves in the recorded sound, without our body becoming the reference system once again, and without ourselves being a part of the scene. All meaningful sonic space is thus body-based: embodied.

These spatial simulations are today a “common” operation: cinema and radio practices have subjected our senses to such virtual reconstructions. We believe in, or at least do not question, what is given to us in terms of sonic spaces, while the greater part of them are simplified and hyperbolic versions of the represented contexts. Could this have an effect on our everyday understanding of physical spaces? Are we conditioning or degrading in some way our ability to decode spatial environments in terms of dimensions, materials and localisation, etc.? The potential sensorial interactions between physical and virtual spaces is an area for careful exploration in the near future.

Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, Panaiotis:

Deep Listening, Suiren, 1989

Space is certainly one of the main components of this piece, if not, in fact, the core one. It is mostly about space, and such space is so present, so excessively ubiquitous, that it will merely fade out in terms of attention, as we listen through the piece. We will simply feel transported to, and immersed in, a very specific sonic environment, whose acoustic characteristics will naturally become a given condition: a new canvas entirely founded in our aural experience. Listening is a surprisingly plastic exercise. Our ears and brain swiftly adapt to and adopt any newly given environment, physical or virtual, whether experienced through presence or simply via an audio recording - “hi-fi” or “lo-fi”. We need to make sense of what we hear, and one of the main components of this sense is a coherent space.

This piece is the result of an in-situ intervention in an abandoned water cistern, at Fort Worden in Port Townsend, Washington state. It is the sonic encounter of three players with a space, an exceptional one in terms of resonant properties, encompassing a 45 second reverberation time. Through necessity, the performance becomes a dialogue between four players instead of three, with the space playing a central role as an active performer. The space itself offering (imposing) a dominant vertical and horizontal sonic canvas to improvise on: a tempo -a very slow pace-, a particular harmonic environment -related to its physical dimensions, proportions and materials. The results can be experienced as a space-sound, a space in motion, in vibration, a frozen form of sound, or a dynamic sonic print of the space.

Confronted by such an overwhelming space, being heard or better, entering into resonance with such a space, requires listening first and responding in accordance afterwards. We can impose a sonic presence by force, but it will not often lead to any fruitful form of dialogue, rather a pure monologue. Fighting against or working with (collaborating, resonating): these are the two possible extremes when approaching such a charismatic sonic space.

Historically, entering into resonance with such spaces could be a form of communion with God; searching for an intimate relation and dialogue in which human voices are “placed” (offered) in a sacred space, devoted to the divine sphere. Spatial reverberation thus represents a form of resonance with the divinity, wherein accessing the space and experiencing its resonance means accessing the mystery. As the bel canto singer places their voice in resonance with their own body (voce impostata), the worshiper seeks communion with the house of the divine.

From a Gothic church to a water cistern or a gas tank, we still experience today the mystery of spaces able to steal, to capture and amplify our voices and freeze them, or suspend them in space. We do not own our sounds anymore, they simply become space.

Janet Cardiff, Audio walks, 1991-2014

(...) you hear my voice giving directions, like “turn left here” or “go through this gateway”, layered on a background of sounds: the sound of my footsteps, traffic, birds, and miscellaneous sound effects that have been pre-recorded on the same site as they are being heard. (...) My voice gives directions but also relates thoughts and narrative elements, which instills in the listener a desire to continue and finish the walk.

Cardiff, The Walk Book, 2005

Cardiff in her audio walks is playing the space, providing a placed (or to be placed) experience that needs to be taken back -with headphones- to its original context. We are confronted with unfinished pieces, in search of dialogue with their space - their place. Waiting to be reflected on a new embodied presence, open to this double, schizophonic sensorial experience. Is it really there or was it there? Situated experience, multiply placed or perhaps even re-placed by parallel scenes, thoughts and reflections.

Through this listening game, the notion of “presence” is deeply questioned: what is its meaning when confronting such ephemeral materials from alternative “realities”? Is presence experienced as more tangible through a fixed recording, or through physical, situated events? These exercises in augmented reality, avant la lettre, can naturally induce experiential breaches in which time is perceived as fragmented or freely recomposed. These ruptures are enhanced by the contrast between a natural visual relation to the environment (non-altered) and the complexity of intervened and multiple sound layers: a parallel intervention in the visual field could potentially lead to overwhelming sensorial experiences, on the border of presence, or even detached from place.

The result is an open and metamorphic piece, which is experienced differently each time a “walker” re-enacts it. It is a piece for two -at a time- in which an active listener, walking the pre-ordained route, becomes the interpreter. Moreover, a piece for three, if we consider the essential role played by the place itself. Borrowing a musical trope, the original soundtrack by Cardiff could be considered a score, waiting for an active interpreter to decide when and how to follow the given instructions. With the result never being the same twice, as place is a synonym of variation, being metabolic[1] by default - always similar but never the same (Augoyard & Torgue, 2006). Our attention will be captured by different situated, recorded or blended events. This depending on the accidental encounters of these materials, our own sensibility, interests and in particular intentions.

There is also room for improvised cadenze: curious walkers can start inserting variations into the walk, in the suggested physical itinerary, in the simultaneity between physical and virtual spaces and, why not, in the intentions and expectations guiding our listening experience.

The attitude I take is that everyday life is more interesting than forms of celebration, when we became aware of it. That when is when our intentions go down to zero. Then suddenly you notice that the world is magical.

Michael Kirby / Richard Schechner: An Interview with John Cage, TDR (Tulane Drama Review), 10, n°2, 1965, p. 65.

Francisco López, Buildings (New York), 2001

The city, the unheard city or, perhaps more precisely, the unlistened city. A rumour of the hidden city at work. The electro-mechanical guts of urban environments, allowing the city to work the way it does. Not welcome, but necessary. Static, constant noise. Present?

This permanent layer of sound is an essential component of today’s urban identity. A background we never pay attention to, or we otherwise complain about. It sustains the comfort of modern urban life, heating or cooling our spaces, moving our bodies and preserving our data.

López portrays here inhabited spaces, whose permanent residents are mostly non-human: machines, networks, pipes and infrastructures. It is unlikely that we welcome their sonic presence, though we are familiar with them, and recognise materials, fluids, functions, dimensions and spaces. We experience them every day, during our urban journeys, in the interior spaces we walk through, in our working environments, or even at home. And often we consciously, or unconsciously, try to mask them as they are disturbing - just noise. A pair of closed, or even noise-cancelling headphones will allow us to simply erase such sonic presence, as far as possible, alongside the rest of the surrounding sounds. We are thus ready to renounce one of the main communication channels with our environment.

Even air travel becomes enjoyable, as engine roar gently fades away. No matter how noisy the world is, it's just you and your music—or simply peace and quiet,

Advertising campaign for the headphones « Quietcomfort » by Bose.

Cage’s and Russolo's fascination with noise is far from popular today. Listening to our daily environments, or simply keeping open to them, is not necessarily considered a meaningful activity. Portable music has progressively replaced -or at least “commented” on , or dialogued with- our ordinary urban backgrounds. Carefully selected soundtracks are juxtaposed or overlapped following our mood, taste and envy, in an operation inspired by audio-visual narrative techniques (such as the omnipresence of music as a permanent background). However, as Michael Bull (2012) describes in detail, we are confronted here with a broad palette of different situations, ranging from those interested in an open dialogue, between added materials and urban backgrounds, and those centred on pure energy masking.

Dialogue or denial, this complex relation with our sonic environment also finds its origins in a contemporary form of sensorial horror vacui: our environment seemingly not exciting enough to retain our attention anymore, we search for a more continuous and “meaningful” feed of information.

Traditional soundscape approaches have taught us to distinguish between “hi-fi” and “lo-fi” environments, opposing the low ones with those presenting a high level of background noise (Murray Schafer, 1977). Listening to the world, but not in a neutral way: categorising, imposing specific criteria, as well as corresponding qualities and discriminating. Cage and Murray Schafer would deeply disagree on this requisite. Unfortunately (or not?), urban soundscapes mainly fall into the second category, they are lo-fi by default, and their backgrounds cannot be silent. The same could be said of natural environments; the background level of a jungle is rarely subtle. Can these categories (“hi-fi” / “lo-fi”) be considered as operational anymore? (Augoyard) Perhaps attractive, as a poetic image of the sonic world, but certainly not coherent with its sensorial (aural) manifestation.

López work is entirely concerned with this background noise. Displaying its richness and relevance, essentially claiming its aural independence from a physical context. It is in this sense a radical Cagean approach to our sonic environments: just listen, experience its aural essence, neglect its original context and meaning. You are invited to a profound listening experience, i.e., to an individual creative act.

(…) sounds are things as much as anything else. Their assumed subservience to sources, while apparently logical and necessary, is illusory and existentially groundless. Their ontological dependence, while seemingly natural, is unjustified and unfair. Neither their ephemerality nor their apparent immateriality (…) can deny them a full existential status. For the truly attentive listener –profound, iconoclast, primordial, with no ‘a prioris’– the creative work with sound recording does nothing short of revealing and reinforcing the same equal ontological status for sounds as for sources.

Francisco López (2019): Sonic creatures

Alain Savouret,  Sonate baroque, Allegro, II. Scène d'intérieur, 1974

A fragmented story is being told in which space and motion have a central role; left-right, up-down, through a series of actions we are invited to trace, to follow, to imagine and mentally reconstruct some form of ordinary spaces and situations. Our spatial experience and listening skills are being questioned. A domestic space is being sketched and explored before our eyes (ears) but we only get fragments of these sonic scenes.

We are simultaneously placed inside and outside, invited to play the role of blind cinematographic observers, whilst  our ears are situated in the centre of the space. We are confronted by a composed and artificial scene, whose spatial characteristics remain entirely ordinary, and perhaps even familiar. The suspicious flavour of the well-known, of a common daily situation under distortion; we feel we know what is it about, even if we can hardly reconstruct a coherent scene.

Savouret’s work resonates with M.C. Escher’s graphical explorations: ordinary and simple elements compose a complex physical environment that questions our daily experience of space and motion. Reflections, distortions, circularity and intentional technical “errors” that generate alternative spaces, already potentially contained in an orthodox representation of space. In the case of both artists, the space is thus continuously reconfigured by playing with, and fooling our senses and perception. No major spatial incoherence is openly declared, while our senses struggle to make sense of the scene. Does it even matter? The point is certainly not representational, but more to evoke, to explore and to question our ordinary experience of place.

The whole, of course, spiced by both artists’ characteristic sense of humour.

We are simultaneously in friction, whilst also at the antipodes of auralisation techniques. An ensemble of aural 3D modelling methods attempting to provide a realistic sonic image of a space. Both cases are entirely based on our experience of place. The second (auralisation) reflecting the space via virtual modelling, i.e. imitation and simulation. The first (electroacoustic work by Savouret and many others) more interested in questioning, expanding, and even perhaps distorting such experience. Our aural knowledge of space seems to be solid enough for being able to accept and interpret such manipulations, and even complete and correct the limited information received. Both, auralisation and electroacoustic operations are, in fact, based on simplified models providing a limited part of the information and corresponding experience.

Pierre Schaeffer, Cinq études de bruits, 1948

In search of a lost materiality in sound

Not so long ago, composing essentially meant writing a score i.e., a high-level abstract exercise, certainly not accessible to everyone. The arrival of sound recording, and in particular the possibility of manipulating such recordings, represented a significant breach in this coded production. Schaeffer’s tape experiments and pieces (1948) signify a double disruption of the dominating paradigm. Firstly, the possibility itself of a sound piece which has no previous score, at least as traditionally understood, and secondly, the absence of a musical “interpreter” (i.e. a performer). The traditional production chain composer > score > interpreter > music was instantly compressed into a single creative act, taking place in a studio or equivalent situation. Today, this entirely new paradigm is probably the most common way to produce the sonic textures populating our daily environments and media entertainments. Composing and interpreting again became a simultaneous act of working directly, and in a hands-on manner with the sound material. In fact, sound became in this context (electroacoustic/ concrete/ acousmatic music) more  of a plastic “material”. A material to explore, as opposed to the more abstract and conceptual (lingugistic) approaches which sustained many of the avant-garde explorations throughout the 20th century.

The central problem of the musical “language” employed (the -isms: serialism, spectralism, etc.), dominating the beginning of the 20th century and post-WWII musical debates, has gradually been replaced by other, more interdisciplinary components of sonic experience. These include space (architecture, urban planning), the encounter with different sensorial dimensions (inter-sensorial perception: tactile, kinesthesis, visual; an embodied perception) and science in general (mathematics, physics, biology, astronomy).

To work for example, with natural sounds, recording and transforming these materials, necessarily means having to deal with our everyday sonic experience of materials, spaces, bodies in motion, situations, environments, as well as aspects in which we are all expert listeners.

Pierre Henry, Variations pour une porte et un soupir, 1963

We are all listening experts.

From the very moment we are born (certainly even before), we start learning to decode the sonic world around us.

A tiny fragment of sound is able to provide us with a complex understanding of the context and atmosphere we are in.

A creaking door sonically describes a localised action, but it can also potentially identify a specific person, and their mood and attitude.

Sound is an extremely detailed descriptor of our physical environment, and we possess the necessary codes to decipher it.

This knowledge has been extensively explored by soundscapers, sound artists and electroacoustic composers. This includes such parameters as spatial dimensions, material qualities and atmospheres/ambiences.

In Variations pour une porte et un soupir, Henry triggers our everyday sonic experience and sculpts with our memories of the ordinary. A series of feelings are depicted, perhaps even induced in the listener by exclusively using the “trivial” voices of an old creaking door in motion: fear, happiness and anger, etc.

Musique concrete, material music or better, experiential music/sound, that is connected to an experience - our daily corporeal and sonic experience. No prior specific knowledge of contemporary or experimental music is required. Our everyday experience is the only pre-requisite element, providing all necessary frames of meaning. Each fragment is searching for a connection with a corporeal action, with a universal embodied knowledge, sonically represented by sounds. We can thus suggest that this piece is perhaps not so much about sounds, but mainly about shared emotional and corporeal states.

Is there a reflection regarding a compositional “language” in this piece? Certainly, but it can almost be neglected, as the essential reference for the listener is not sought in alien intellectual constructs, but rather contained in, and referred to, our own personal experience. At once, universal and personal simultaneously. Through these sounds, we “auralise”, we experience a series of materials in friction, as well as bodies in action

Iannis Xenakis, Concret PH, 1958 / Persépolis, 1971 / Diatope, 1977-78

Navigating among disciplines

Xenakis was an architect and mathematician, approaching sound from a radically new paradigm where classically-segregated knowledge areas encounter each other. Listening to Xenakis’ pieces has traditionally been considered a demanding exercise, especially when trying to approach his work from a purely musical perspective. The main question to be posed here is if this perspective is, in fact, the right one: restricting Xenakis to a musical experience is certainly unfair; as not even the larger category of sound can be considered as operational anymore. What Xenakis depicts through his pieces, in particular in his Polytopes (1967-78), is a complex experience of place, represented by a number of multiple sonic, physical and kinaesthetic materials and evocations. A purely musical analysis will only provide a highly demanding (perhaps even disturbing) experience, as it cannot be decoded through traditional compositional criteria and aesthetic listening categories. A much more open frame of production and reception is required, with a greater level of connection to our everyday urban experience. Thus open to the complexity of the multiple and simultaneous micro-events and interactions populating our ordinary experience of place.

Drawing sounds

One of Xenakis’ main research areas was the exploration of graphic languages and tools oriented to musical/sonic creation. In the second half of the 20th century, graphic scores became one of the main responses to the lack of flexibility and limitations of traditional musical notation. The new musical ideas under development required new representational models able to deal with new complex structures in the frequency and time domains: aspects such as continuity (glissandi, a non-discrete series of notes), complex or non-measurable rhythmic structures, etc. entirely overflowed conventional notation resources. Writing new music often meant conceiving, in parallel, a specifically dedicated language and representational system able to communicate to the musician the new ideas to be performed. The emergence of computer-based sonic structures significantly  aggravated the situation, often downgrading traditional scores to the role of mere aesthetic representation (unable to operate as a communication tool anymore) or even to a state of obsolescence.

In this search for new tools, Xenakis took advantage of his experience as an architect and mathematician to conceive new tools like the UPIC ("Unité polyagogique informatique du CEMAMU") in which musical structures could be directly drawn and listened to in real time. We enjoy today an array of open source and commercial software inspired by Xenakis’ explorations, or even directly developed by his former laboratory (IanniX, UPISketch and HighC for example). Some of the main specificities of this family of tools involve a graphic interface inspired by a more intuitive spectrogram principle (a continuous 2D space, where time is represented in the X-axis and frequencies in the Y-axis; IanniX is specific in this sense, as it is a 3D space where each flow of space/motion data can be freely assigned and employed). This offers the possibility of real-time synthesis (listening to the result in parallel to drawing), as well as general access to a number of sonic synthetic materials and manipulations that were before out of the reach of non-professional musicians or sound designers. In this sense, such graphic tools have phenomenal potential in pedagogical terms, and should be regarded as a remarkable instrument for any open-minded amateur or professional sound explorer.

The tools employed will always necessarily influence, or even format, the achieved sonic results. Working with these kinds of graphical interfaces means operating with concepts that are perhaps not naturally associated with sound, such as trajectories, density, plasticity, proportions, distance and scale. Space and motion thus become the main components of a practice traditionally focused on time. In this sense, these tools can be regarded as an interdisciplinary bridge between spatial and sonic disciplines. Two practice and knowledge areas traditionally in friction, searching each other, manifesting a reciprocal fascination, but rarely able to operate together, in order to find meaningful shared aims and strategies.