London Sound Seminar

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Comment by Joseph Kohlmaier on July 20, 2012 at 10:07

Musarc will be running its Field Studes summer school again this year from 10–13 September 2012. Tutors this year will be Brandon LaBelle, Lee Patterson and Davide Tidnoi. There will be a keynote by Christina Kubisch on Wednesday 12 September. Please share the link to the website: http://field-studies.org

Comment by Jonathan Tee on January 25, 2012 at 9:29

Just to confirm programme as below. First session next week. All welcome!

- 1 Feb [Rm 113, 43 Gordon Square]. 'The Soundproof Study: Victorian Professional Identity and Urban noise' in John M. Picker, Victorian Soundscapes (Oxford: OUP, 2003), pp.41–81 [also look at pp.15–16 from Ch.1]

- 15 Feb [Rm 113, 43 Gordon Square]. Emily Thompson, 'Noise and Modern Culture, 1900–1933', in The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900–1933 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), pp.115–168

- 29 Feb [Rm 114 – Keynes Library, 43 Gordon Square – NOTE DIFFERENT ROOM]. 'The Noise of Almost Nothing' – talk by Hillel Schwartz (author of Making Noise)

- 14 Mar [Rm 113, 43 Gordon Square]. Kittler. Extracts from Gramophone and forthcoming ch. 'The God of Ears' (on Pink Floyd's 'Brain Damage') [selections TBC]

Hopefully the Picker and Thompson books are easily available for people to access.

Comment by Jonathan Tee on October 5, 2011 at 8:33

Here is the schedule for the Autumn 2011 London Sound Seminar meetings.

This term we have a number of individuals leading the sessions, which is themed around sound-producing objects.

12 October – Steve Connor on Tape [4.30–6pm, Rm 112, 43 Gordon Square]

Steve says the following links may be useful background:
John Hurt in Krapp's Last Tape - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOUf5etSTRo&feature=related
Atom Egoyan, Steenbeckett - http://www.artangel.org.uk/projects/2002/steenbeckett
Steven Connor, 'Looping the Loop: Tape-Time in Burroughs and Beckett',http://www.stevenconnor.com/looping/

26 October – Aura Satz on the Oramics machine [4.30–6pm, Rm 112, 43 Gordon Square]

9 November – Jonathan Tee on the Public Address System [4.30–6pm, Rm 112, 43 Gordon Square]

7 December – Holly Pester on the Answer Machine [4.30–6pm, Rm 213, 43 Gordon Square] [Note the change in location: this will be held in Steve Connor's office, Rm 213, 43 Gordon Square]

All sessions except 7 December will be in Rm 112, 43 Gordon Square, Wednesdays, 4.30–6pm.

All welcome!

Jon

Comment by Jonathan Tee on June 25, 2011 at 19:09

Hello all

The reading for our final session of this term (Rm 112, 43 Gordon Square, 4.30-6pm, Weds 29 June) is as follows:

- Walter Ong, The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), pp.111–138 [first published 1967]
- Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), pp.13–19*

* starting from 'If our goal is to describe'.

Pdfs have been sent to the London Sound Seminar group list (sign up).

The Ong is quite a rapid read, so hopefully this is a short enough extract. Most of the main claims are in italics so are easy to spot.

As it's our last session for this term, do come along with thoughts about what we do next term (themes, texts, ideas for outings etc.)

Thanks Carlo for a great session on digital sound earlier this week!

Best wishes

Jon

Comment by Jonathan Tee on June 6, 2011 at 20:43

Hello

Many thanks to Holly for a fantastic session on sound poetry last week.

The next session,on Wednesday 22 June 2011 [note change of date!] will be lead by Carlo and will be on digital sound. The readings are:

- Aden Evens, Sound Ideas: Music, Machines and Experience (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), Chapter 3 'Sound and Design'

- Jonathan Sterne, 'The Death and Life of Digital Audio', Interdisciplinary Science Reviews 31, no. 4, 2006, 338-348. [http://sterneworks.org/deathandlife.pdf]

I think Carlo will distribute a pdf of the Evens to the list shortly.

Due to diary clashes (mostly, but not exclusively mine), the date has been changed from 15 June to 22 June. Same time (4.30pm). Usual place (Rm 112, 43 Gordon Sq). Apologies if that causes any problems!

Look forward to seeing you all at the next session.

Best wishes

Jon

Comment by Jonathan Tee on December 17, 2010 at 15:43

Hello again

At the last of the sessions this term, there was a general enthusiasm to continue meeting next term, but, with an awareness of the Wheatsheaf sound talks also occurring next term, there was a suggestion to meet at slightly lower frequency and to use the more intimate setting of the London Sound Seminar to engage with some of the issues that will emerge out of the Wheatsheaf talks - perhaps around a related text, or perhaps simply around the direct content of the talks.

I spoke with Steve re: his availability and the following two dates emerged. I suggest, unless there are strong objections, we put these into the collective calendar:

- Wednesday, 9 Feb 2011, 4.30-6pm

- Wednesday, 16 March 2011, 4.30-6pm

Usual location: Rm112, 43 Gordon Square (assuming I can book the room).

Both occur after two Wheatsheaf talks have elapsed.

If anyone has any objection to these dates or the approach, do shout.

Also if particular texts occur that relate to the content of the preceding Wheatsheaf talks, then please feel free to make suggestions. (Or we can just discuss the content of the talks directly).

In the Summer term we can return to meeting every two weeks and we should think about texts for the Summer term during next term.

Merry Christmas !

Jon

Comment by Jonathan Tee on December 17, 2010 at 14:41

Wheatsheaf Lectures – New Ecologies of Sound

In the first three months of 2011 a series of four talks will explore the nexus of ‘sound’, ‘noise’ and ‘music’ from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. In the context of a bourgeoning sensitivity to the auditory across a range of disciplines, these talks will consider how particular formulations of these interdependent notions transform ‘sound’ from an isolated attribute of sensory experience into a embedded, ecological means of world-inhabitation.

As has been an ongoing tradition for the London Consortium, the series will be held in the Wheatsheaf pub (25 Rathbone Place, W1T 1DG) – a favourite of 1930s writers such as George Orwell and Dylan Thomas – a venue that will also provide a great opportunity for continuing informal discussion following each paper.

The current series has been organised by London Consortium and Birkbeck College postgraduate students Matt Clements and Jonathan Tee, and is also associated with the London Sound Seminar. It is free and open to all.

If you would like more information about these events please contact: Jonathan Tee (jonathantee [at] cantab [dot] net) or Matt Clements (m.clements [at] bbk [dot] ac [dot] uk).

Wednesday, 19th January, 7pm

Eric Clarke – Musical Meaning: an Ecological Approach

Eric Clarke went to the University of Sussex to read for a degree in Neurobiology, and graduated with a degree in Music. In 2007 he was elected to the Heather Professorship of Music at Oxford, and is currently an Associate Director of the AHRC Research Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music. For 10 years he was a member of the improvising string quartet The Lapis Quartet. Eric Clarke’s research embraces a number of areas within the psychology of music, music theory, and musical aesthetics/semiotics. He is the author of a recent monograph on listening (Ways of Listening. An Ecological Approach to the Perception of Musical Meaning OUP, 2005) and co-editor of a volume on Empirical Musicology (OUP, 2004). He has also published more than 60 papers and book chapters on music related topics.

Tuesday, 1st February, 7pm

David Toop – ‘A Sinister Practice: The Uncanny Space Between Improvisation, Composition, Live Performance and the Digital Domain’

David Toop is a composer/musician, author and curator who has worked in many fields of sound art and music, including improvisation, sound installations, field recordings, pop music production, music for television, theatre and dance. He has published five books, including Ocean of Sound, Haunted Weather, and Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener. He has released eight solo albums, including Screen Ceremonies, Black Chamber and Sound Body, As a critic he has written for many publications, including The Wire, The Face, Leonardo Music Journal and Bookforum. Exhibitions he has curated include Sonic Boom at the Hayward Gallery, London, Playing John Cage at Arnolfini, Bristol, and Blow Up at Flat-Time House, London. Visiting Professor at the University of the Arts London, he is a Senior Research Fellow at London College of Communication.

Wednesday, 16th February, 7pm

Henry Stobart – ‘Saturating the Soundscape?

Conceptualizing Sound and Silence in the Andes and Beyond’

Henry Stobart is Reader in Music/Ethnomusicology in the Music Department of Royal Holloway, University of London. His research has principally focused on indigenous music of the Bolivian Andes; examined from a wide range of perspectives. His books include the monograph Music and the Poetics of Production in the Bolivian Andes (Ashgate, 2006) and several edited volumes: The New (Ethno)musicologies (Scarecrow, 2008), Knowledge and Learning in the Andes: Ethnographic Perspectives (co-edited with Rosaleen Howard; Liverpool University Press, 2002), and Sound (coedited with Patricia Kruth; Cambridge University Press, 2000). He is currently working on a monograph provisionally entitled Digital Indigeneity and has been invited to write a theoretical volume on ethnomusicological perspectives to Music and Environment.

Tuesday, 1st March, 7pm

Karin Bijsterveld – Car Sound Ecologies: A History of Listening to and in the Automobile

Karin Bijsterveld is historian and professor in the Department of Science, Technology and Society Studies, Maastricht University. She is author of Mechanical Sound: Technology, Culture and Public Problems of Noise in the Twentieth Century (MIT Press 2008), and co-editor (with José van Dijck) of Sound Souvenirs: Audio Technologies, Memory and Cultural Practices (AUP 2009). With Trevor Pinch, she is working on The Oxford Handbook of Sound Studies. She has recently been awarded with a NWO-VICI grant for the project Sonic Skills: Sound and Listening in Science, Technology and Medicine, 1920s-now.

Comment by Zara Dinnen on November 30, 2010 at 11:20

Digital Is...

(Reflections on literary, performance, and visual cultural practices in the digital era)


A one-off chance to hear from four esteemed practitioners of the digital arts:

Joahnnes Birringer (Director, DAP-Lab at Brunel; Artistic Director, AlienNation Co.); Kate Pullinger (Author; Reader in Creative Writing and New Media at DeMontfort); Thomson & Craighead (Artists; Lecturers at Goldsmiths, Slade School of Fine Art); and Tim Wright (Digital Writer; Cross-platform Producer).

For one night only the Contemporary Fiction Seminar (in collaboration with the Birkbeck School of Arts Graduate Lecture Series) brings these speakers together to discuss their creative digital practices and the critical issues that surround their work.

The event will be chaired by Dr Nick Lambert (Lecturer in Digital Art at Birkbeck).

Details:

Thursday 9th December 2010
7.30 - 9pm (followed by wine reception)
Rm 538, main Birkbeck Building, Malet St., WC1 (map)

All are welcome.

If you have any further questions please contact Zara Dinnen or Tony Venezia (co-ordinators of the Contemporary Fiction Seminar).

Hope to see you all there!

Comment by Holly Pester on November 10, 2010 at 14:44

Everyone - if this is of any help I have Beckett's Embers on my itunes. I downloaded it...unofficially shall we say.... a while ago. If anyone has dropbox or a filesharing account and I can send it to them...

Comment by Hannah Gregory on November 3, 2010 at 15:58

Sorry not to make it to discuss Brecht today.

A reminder of the Call & Response Sonic Arts Event this weekend. 8.1 Genelec system in an elliptical layout!
Performance on Friday, discussion panel, "Sound Is Promiscuous" on Saturday afternoon at 4.30pm, rolling programme of 8 channel works playing Thursday - Sunday. It's in The James Taylor Gallery in Hackney. More info here: http://callandresponse.org.uk/programme/

Hope to see some of you there.

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