Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Joel Ong Lecture Notes | Event 3

Joel Ong: Sound Art
-       Interested in how we listen to sound and the different theories that come out of it
-       Mr. Foley: talks about the presence of sound all around us

What is Sound?
-       If a tree falls in a forest…
-       Sound with reference to a listener vs. the environment
-       Modern philosophy: sound is always a relationship (depending on how you move your head, position yourself, relationship is always changing)
-       Keywords: Tuning, Resonance, Feedback, Environment
-       Pythatgoras: 570BC to 495BC – phythagorial theorem
o   Interested in harmony, listening intently to sounds, mathematical ratios, and geometry. Realized that hitting different-sized objects creates different pitches
o   Musica Universalis – Harmony/Music of the Spheres
§  Pythagoras proposed that all celestial bodies all produce a unique hum based on their orbital resonance
§  Earth actually sounds pretty dissonant compared to other planets
-       Acoustics: sound – sound is our perception of sensation created by a vibrating source, that disturbs molecules of liquid, gas, or solid, within certain range of frequencies

Cynatics
-       Cynatics: TED Talk: Making Sound Visible through Cynatics (Evan Grant)
-       Objective and perceptual sides to sound
-       Acoustic: frequency, amplitude, spectrum, duration, velocity
-       Perceptual: pitch

What is Listening?
-       Removing other senses, what is the best way to listen?
-       Bernard Parmegiani – De Natura Sonorum sound artist
-       Max Neuhaus – Water Whistle Series (listen while underwater)
-       Can your ears blink?
-       Carrie Ann Simpson: “Noise Cancellation: Disrupting Audio Perception”
-       Anechoic Chamber – whatever is in the chamber, does not echo, there is no external sound source
-       John Cage (1912-1992) – “Until I die, there will be sounds”
o   Went to an anechoic chamber and still heard two sounds- high = nervous system, low = blood circulation
o   Notion of silence: can we experience it while we are alive?
o   4’33” – performance piece with no sound, each person’s perception is different
§  My experience: watching it on an edited video is much different than experiencing it in real life
o   Also composed with plants – amplified cacti, chess boards, tennis rackets, etc.


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