Joel Ong: Sound | Art
Joel Ong is an artist who has most recently completed a graduate Biological Arts degree at SymbioticA, University of Western Australia. According to Exhibition Road, "he is primarily interested in the definitions of listening that are developed from interdisciplinary research, extending scientific explorations of physical resonance and vibrations, to the psychological, anthropological and imaginative premise of sound and embodiment. He is also a musician who perhaps devotes too much time to his instruments and his guitar-dissonant melodies."
Last Thursday, I went to listen to Joel Ong's lecture on sound art! It was interesting to learn about how he processes sound -- he spent most of the lecture laying the groundwork for sound terminology and explaining how sound processing works (and how it differs based on perspective and form person-to-person). He first showed us Mr. Foley (video seen above), which centers around the fact that sound is always all around us, and shows a man trying to escape a band following him around "soundtracking" his life. After showing us the video, Ong explained his interest in how we listen to sound and the different theories that come out of it.
What is Sound?
Ong then went into a basic description of sound, first asking the age-old question "If a tree falls in a forest...". This led into a discussion of sound as a relationship between the listener and the environment, a relationship that is always changing depending on how you move your head and position yourself. At one end, the perspective is grounded in mathematical ratios and acoustic, from the frequency and the wavelength to the sound. At the other, perspectives are grounded in your psychosocial perception of sound and how you individually process the melding of different pitches together. Pythagoras (570-495BC) was interested in these harmonies, in listening intently to sounds, and using different-sized objects to create a multitude of different pitches. He was a pioneer of the Musica Universalis (Music of the Spheres), a proposition that all celestial bodies produce a unique hum, stemming from their orbital resonance. It was funny to learn that Earth's hum is actually pretty dissonant compared to that of other planets!
What is Sound?
Ong then went into a basic description of sound, first asking the age-old question "If a tree falls in a forest...". This led into a discussion of sound as a relationship between the listener and the environment, a relationship that is always changing depending on how you move your head and position yourself. At one end, the perspective is grounded in mathematical ratios and acoustic, from the frequency and the wavelength to the sound. At the other, perspectives are grounded in your psychosocial perception of sound and how you individually process the melding of different pitches together. Pythagoras (570-495BC) was interested in these harmonies, in listening intently to sounds, and using different-sized objects to create a multitude of different pitches. He was a pioneer of the Musica Universalis (Music of the Spheres), a proposition that all celestial bodies produce a unique hum, stemming from their orbital resonance. It was funny to learn that Earth's hum is actually pretty dissonant compared to that of 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
We then watched an interesting TED Talk: Making Sound Visible through Cynatics (Evan Grant). This talk further delved into the objective and perceptual sides to sound. What I found most interesting about the discussion of this portion in sound is that sound surrounds us constantly. There is never a waking (or sleeping) moment where you aren't surrounded by the hums of the earth, the whirrs of a computer, or the rushes of flowing water. Sound is so omnipresent that it becomes easy to block out sound and have your brain discard this input as background, irrelevant stimuli.
We then watched an interesting TED Talk: Making Sound Visible through Cynatics (Evan Grant). This talk further delved into the objective and perceptual sides to sound. What I found most interesting about the discussion of this portion in sound is that sound surrounds us constantly. There is never a waking (or sleeping) moment where you aren't surrounded by the hums of the earth, the whirrs of a computer, or the rushes of flowing water. Sound is so omnipresent that it becomes easy to block out sound and have your brain discard this input as background, irrelevant stimuli.
What is Listening?
The above realization about sound thus made the concept of listening all the more important. Ong posed the question -- "Removing other senses, what is the best way to listen?" and referenced a multitude of other projects that focused participants on directed listening. I thought the most interesting was the Anechoic Chamber, where there is no echoing of sound from external sources (picture seen above). I'm very interested in experiencing UCLA's Anechoic Chamber!
Ong then spent a significant portion of his lecture discussing John Cage (1912-1992), who famously stated "Until I die, there will be sounds". Even in the anechoic chamber, Cage heard two sounds, the sound of his nervous system operating (high), and the sound of his blood circulating (low). He pondered whether or not we can experience true silence while we were alive, and implemented many performance pieces focusing listening to silence and the lack of noise rather than listening to jarring or composed sounds. The most famous of such performances is 4'33", where a composer sits on stage with a full orchestra and conducts a 4'33" long piece of silence. It's a very interesting concept -- even when we watched it in class I became much more cognizant of "background" noise like shuffling of feet, coughing, etc.
Other cool sound art projects:
The above realization about sound thus made the concept of listening all the more important. Ong posed the question -- "Removing other senses, what is the best way to listen?" and referenced a multitude of other projects that focused participants on directed listening. I thought the most interesting was the Anechoic Chamber, where there is no echoing of sound from external sources (picture seen above). I'm very interested in experiencing UCLA's Anechoic Chamber!
Ong then spent a significant portion of his lecture discussing John Cage (1912-1992), who famously stated "Until I die, there will be sounds". Even in the anechoic chamber, Cage heard two sounds, the sound of his nervous system operating (high), and the sound of his blood circulating (low). He pondered whether or not we can experience true silence while we were alive, and implemented many performance pieces focusing listening to silence and the lack of noise rather than listening to jarring or composed sounds. The most famous of such performances is 4'33", where a composer sits on stage with a full orchestra and conducts a 4'33" long piece of silence. It's a very interesting concept -- even when we watched it in class I became much more cognizant of "background" noise like shuffling of feet, coughing, etc.
Other cool sound art projects:
- 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”
Sources:
"Exhibition Road | Ong, Joel." Exhibition Road Joel Ong Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 July 2014. <http://www.exhibitionroad.com/6601/joel-ong>.
"John Cage - About the Composer." PBS. PBS, 1 Aug. 2001. Web. 30 July 2014. <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/john-cage/about-the-composer/471/>.
Ahern, Mike, and Enda Loughman. "Mr. Foley." Vimeo. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 July 2014. <http://vimeo.com/20606655>.
Cox, Trevor. "Does an anechoic chamber cause hallucinations?." The Sound Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 July 2014. <http://acousticengineering.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/does-an-anechoic-chamber-cause-hallucinations/>.
Ong, Joel. "Sound | Art." . N.p., n.d. Web. 30 July 2014. <http://www.arkfrequencies.com>.
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