My piece, entitled, “I’ve lost an hour to your noise”, is a sonic and visual exploration of the experience of listening to independent radio with Sensory Processing Disorder. Featuring seven tracks, six speaker elements, four ipods, three ipod docs, two mic stands, and untold numbers of cables, the final piece was a sound installation with a projected installation ‘poster’ made from Rubylith and painter’s tape. The question I wanted my piece to answer is, “How does a sensory disorder change the way imperfect sound, such as that of radio broadcasts, is processed?”
I began this project with the intention of creating a piece about independent radio. Inspired by Mike Kelley’s sound installations and the shows my friends are currently broadcasting, I initially wished to explore the isolationist vs. communal experiences frequently spoken of by independent radio enthusiasts. I planned to build a series of listening devices, through which a ‘fake’ radio program of my own construction would be played. One would represent the isolation of listening to independent radio, as most people tend to listen alone; one would represent the communal aspect: like most subcultures, independent radio geeks are fiercely attached to one another as a general rule, discussing the programming with each other even if they listen alone; and one would explore the joining of the two, dealing with the duality of independent radio in the modern age (broadcast vs. internet radio vs. podcast). As I began to research, though, I found myself drawn away from this topic by another, more personal/experiential one: that of my own listening experience as filtered through Sensory Processing Disorder. Since my sensory condition strongly affects the way I process sound, radio is frequently difficult for me to listen to, especially independent radio, which tends to feature stranger music and weaker broadcast signals, lending itself to static and other sonic imperfections. I became fascinated with this interplay between my love for the medium and my difficulty consuming it.
In the course of my research, I rediscovered a show called MESSENGERBIRD, a Canadian radio program that featured hour-long improvised noise/sound collage sessions. As I listened to the archive of the show, I became increasingly aware of my tendency to ‘drift’, or zone out, in the pleasant, harmonious sections of the recordings, and then latch on to elements of the more dissonant, unpleasant sections and get carried away with them. I decided to focus on this part of my listening experience for my project.
My intention was to create a short (two minutes) piece that would simulate for the neuroptypical listener the experience of a sound-induced sensory episode. The piece is composed of three rounds (“As I Me Walked”, “Come Follow”, and “When You Are Born”) and a C Major scale. I chose to work with these components because of their orderly nature: rounds are an ancient method of group singing in which a simple melody is layered upon itself to form a more complex sound fabric. In much the same way, scales form the basis of the entirety of music theory. These are both simple, orderly collections of notes that become complex when layered; but they also rely heavily on precision of tuning and timing in order to sound correct. Rounds, as I attempted to demonstrate with my piece, fall apart quickly if even one singer is off-key or off-rhythm, changing the sound quality from harmonious and organized to disordered and unsettling. When three of these rounds and a scale are layered as I layered mine, they quickly become overwhelming.
From the start, I knew that I wanted to create a sound piece that would envelop the listener, so I recorded each component to a separate track (seven tracks total) in Garageband using a cheap USB microphone and played each track through a separate speaker using four iPods. I set the speakers up in a parabolic arc, so that if one stands in front of them, the piece is played in surround sound. I took the idea for this shape from Michelle Rosenberg’s 2008 work, “Temporary Listening Structure” which used a parabolic arc to reflect and amplify ambient noise to the listener.
For the visual component, I created a poster of sorts for my installation, giving a little bit of admittedly veiled context for the project. The text reads, “COMING TO YOU LIVE FROM SOMEWHERE EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI AND NOWHERE CLOSE TO SENSO-RY EQUILIBRIUM…I’VE LOST AN HOUR TO YOUR NOISE”, and is a reference to both a title I scrapped (“WSPD”; in American broadcast radio, a “W” prefix on a station identification acronym indicates that the station is located east of the Mississippi, while a “K” indicates a western location) and to a phrase (“sensory equilibrium”) my occupational therapist used when I was initially diagnosed with SPD.
To create this “poster”, I used a material called Rubylith, which was originally used by screenprinters to create the negatives for exposing screens. Rubylith is made of two sheets of plastic, one clear and stiff, one transparent red and rubberized. When one cuts away the red, the clear is revealed, which makes it excellent for projecting, as I did. I shone an LED spotlight through the Rubylith stencil, but the light was not sourced enough, so I focused it using a piece of tinfoil with a small hole in the center that I placed over the light bulb. One of the joys of this project was that every single part of it was just about as complicated as I could make it: the way that I wired the speakers was not something any electrician would recommend, and the lighting was imperfect at best, but it was actually incredibly rewarding to spend all that time troubleshooting and reworking the piece, just so that it would work perfectly once it was installed. This complexity was also necessary because virtually all the components, save the iPods, were either salvaged or found in my house. I tried not to buy anything new, so I was forced to devise increasingly complicated work-arounds for some of the more difficult challenges.
The use of light, Rubylith, and microphone stands to create the installation ‘poster’ also serves as a fairly obvious visual representation of radio: the light is the broadcast frequency, translating the precisely-cut words on the Rubylith into something blurred and changed on the wall behind it. The placement and spacing of the text was meant to simulate the sensory of experience: since the text is cramped and runs together, it is difficult to read, much as the sound piece is difficult to follow because of the layering within.
Keeping the ‘fake’ element presented an interesting challenge with this piece, given the personal nature of the subject matter. The fake element of my project ended up being the false sensory experience simulated by the composition; as well as the fact that the majority of the physical component of the piece was not made by me, so much as found and assembled.
This is by far the most ambitious project I’ve ever undertaken, even with the simplifications I made to my original idea, but it was also one of the most rewarding: for all that the sound piece was extremely discomforting for me to listen to, I feel that it achieved my goal of giving the neurotypical listener a chance to experience sound as I do.
Annotated Bibliography
- Azerrad, Michael. Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991. Boston, Mass. [etc.: Little, Brown, 2001. Print.
This book covers the careers of ten bands integral to the American independent music scene in the 1980s (The Pixies, Black Flag, The Minutemen, Butthole Surfers, Big Black, Minor Threat, Hüsker Dü, The Replacements, and Mudhoney), and discusses their influence on the indie scene as it stands today. It also discusses the rise and influence of campus radio, and the recording techniques used by these bands. The idea to use multiple speakers and tracks came from a Butthole Surfers performance piece described in this book, wherein they recorded 24 tracks and made 24 tapes, to be played simultaneously from speakers set up in a circle around the room. They also had four drummers, one in each corner, so that the audience would be literally surrounded by the music.
- “Mike Kelley.” MoMA PS1. 22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, NY 11101. November 4, November 30.
Though Mike Kelley is best known for his sculptural installation pieces, his multimedia work is one of his great strengths. The sound installations he created while at CalArts early in his career were part of my decision to do a sound-based installation piece. I ended up going back in order to spend more time with this sound piece and found another he had done later in his career. Both were integral in shaping the way I layered sound in my own composition, as well as in helping me determine what sorts of sounds I wished to use in my pieces. Additionally, in an interview that aired on PBS’ “Art 21”, Kelley talked about his past as a member of various noise and punk bands, and how much he missed making music once he became an artist. Kelly said that his motivation for including sound elements in his work was so that he would have to make music, which I identified with strongly. It was that interview that inspired me to make a sound piece for this project in the first place.
- Penkava, Scott. “Visiting Artist’s Talk.” n.p. Parsons The New School for Design. NY, NY. November 25.
- Penkava, Scott. Personal Interview. November 25.
The artist Scott Penkava gave an informal lecture on his work in our Studio class, and afterwards was very helpful in talking through my project with me. Although Penkava is primarily a sculptor, he has also done work with video and other media. His insights into his own early work were a great help to me in analyzing my own ideas and it was ultimately some of his suggestions that helped me focus my research topic (thinking about independent radio in the context of Sensory Processing Disorder), as well as simplify my project ideas into a more cohesive form. Penkava, like me, grew up in the punk and hardcore scene, so he was also able to give me some interesting insight into my project from that point of view.
- Webb, Bryan. “MESSENGERBIRD (Program Archive).” MESSENGERBIRD. Bryan Webb/CFRU, 15 Mar. 2012. Web. 1 Dec. 2013.
CFRU, a campus radio station in Guelph, Ontario, broadcast this short-lived program every Thursday evening, live from a basement below an antique shop. Bry Webb, formerly the frontman of the Constantines and also CFRU’s programming coordinator, would gather an assortment of people, instruments, and samples in said basement to record and broadcast an hour’s worth of improvised sound. Each week’s episode was vastly different from the one that preceded it. I listened to each with a special ear for which sounds were pleasant for me, which were difficult/triggering, and the transitions between the two. Though my piece ended up being much shorter than an episode of MESSENGERBIRD, these technical elements proved especially useful in the process of creating and recording my composition.
- Barclay, Michael, Ian Andrew Dylan Jack, and Jason Schneider. Have Not Been the Same: The CanRock Renaissance, 1985-95. Toronto: ECW, 2001. Print.
This seminal book on the Canadian alternative music scene starts with Canadian alternative radio, namely the shows Brave New Waves and Night Lines, and the ongoing programming of Nardwuar the Human Serviette. Though my piece did not end up using the format of a traditional radio program, the content about the early days of these programs, about their recording techniques and formats, was helpful in deciding what format and content to use for my composition. I also used the book as a resource for more obscure noise bands, such as those who released records with Og Records. This was helpful in determining the sorts of sonic dissonance and assonance that would be most effective in my own composition.
- Peel, John. “The Peel Sessions: Best 125.” BBC News. BBC, Oct. 2005. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
The Peel Sessions was a long-running BBC series, in which legendary DJ John Peel invited artists to record and broadcast live versions of their songs in the BBC studios. Over the years (the show was operational from 1967-2004), Peel had some 2000 artists on the air, for a total of over 4,000 sessions, including some of the most influential bands of the past century. In my research, I focused on the now cult-status Joy Division session, which elevated the band from a Manchester club favorite to an internationally known touring band. Joy Division were always known for their adventurousness in the studio, and this session is no different. The sounds they put to tape at Factory Records, already weird enough thanks to the warped bass sounds achieved by Peter Hook, Ian Curtis’s shaky baritone, and the revolutionary synth and drum sounds, become even stranger when recorded and broadcast via radio. I was especially interested in this distortion with Joy Division because I have always struggled to listen to them, as much as I love their music. Something about their sound triggers what I have come to refer to as a “Joy Division headache”, an effect I was interested in from the sensory angle of this project.
