imagination

Today instead of class on campus, we visited British Library Sound Archive. We took part in a talk guided by Tom Ruane about the history of sound formats and the British Library program called Save Our Sounds and Unlocking Our Sound Heritage. Both of these programs aimed to digitize as many physical recordings as possible to prevent them from getting ruined which will cause, the sound encrypted on them, to be lost forever. At the begging, Tom talked about the first sound recorders, and how it all began and showed us examples of what we were talking about such as Edison’s wax cylinders, Tinfoil Photograph, and Instantaneous Discs. It all started with the Phonautograph invented in 1860 by Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville. It transcribed sound waves as undulations or other deviations in a line traced on smoke-blackened paper or glass. In 1877 Thomas Edison invented Tinfoil Phonograph. In July, while developing his telephone transmitter, Edison conceived the idea of recording and playing back telephone messages. After experimenting with a telephone “diaphragm having an embossing point & held against paraffin paper moving rapidly,” he found that the sound “vibrations are indented nicely” and concluded, “there’s no doubt that I shall be able to store up & reproduce automatically at any future time the human voice perfectly.” Another one invented in 1896 was the Phonograph cylinder. these hollow cylindrical objects have an audio recording engraved on the outside surface, which can be reproduced when they are played on a mechanical cylinder phonograph. At the same time, Emile Berliner introduced his Gramophone. The 20th century brought Lacquer discs also called acetates or instantaneous discs. Lacquer discs were used in a recording system that enabled instantaneous playback after recording. And lastly, we have a magnetic recording. Method of preserving sounds, pictures, and data in the form of electrical signals through the selective magnetization of portions of a magnetic material.

In the end, Robin showed us around the basement of Sound Archive where acetate discs and vinyl discs are dried, cleaned, and restored. Above is a picture of how the space looked. I am embarrassed to say that I have never really studied the history of sound formats or the beginnings of sound recordings. I was amazed to learn that Thomas Edison had his part in how sound is encrypted and how his invention influenced the next inventions in the sound world. I found this trip very instructive and fascinating.

Link to my playlist here: https://www.are.na/share/RIUFpMR

I had turbo tutorial today with Ingrid. She gave me a lot of sources I can get inspiration from or simply use in my audio paper. Therefore I changed drastically my playlist, first of all because the general topic of my piece has changed and secondly because sources that Ingrid suggested to me are exactly talking about aspects I am gonna focus on in my work. I was doing my research on female-artists in sound arts but I didn’t find any of the resources that Ingrid gave me and I think that if not for her I wouldn’t find them at all. Thought of it makes me really sad as it just proves how hard it is to find supporting materials and information for female-identifying sound artists from female-identifying sound artists. My updated playlist consist of:

1. Her Noise Archive: resource of collected materials investigating music and sound histories in relation to gender, bringing together wide network of women who use sound as a medium
2. Forbe’s interview on gender inequality in music industry
3. Rolling Stone’s interview on gender inequality in music industry, which features Desiree Perez( CEO of Roc Nation)
4. Sonic Cyberfeminism created by Annie Goh and Marie Thompson, which provide an opportunity to critically reflect upon cyber feminism and contribute to current activism, and debates concerning sound, gender and technology.
5. Quotes from book “Breast and Eggs” by Mieko Kawakami
6. Quotes from book “Kim JiYoung, Born 1982” by Cho Nam-Joo
7. Bechdel at LCC by Ingrid Plum, which seeks to bridge the gap in skills sharing for non binary, female, and trans students, and provide a safe space for discussion
8. Grapefruits magazine created by students of the master programme Klang and Realitat at the RSH Dusseldorf which focuses on women and people who identify as women, who have been affected by lack of visibility- historically and at present
9. song “Breakfast” by Dove Cameron

INTRO sound and introduction to my audio paper same as before just little changed for the purpose of new topic, which is gender inequality in sound arts and music industry. Second paragraph will be all about statistics, surveys on gender inequality with my thoughts in between + interview female artist that I know about this problem. Third paragraph is about what has to change in sounds arts/ music industry to create safe and equal space for women + interview with female artist about this question. Fourth paragraph is imagination/realization, which is developing my surrealistic idea of creating “realization” pill that would destroy sexism, objectification, discrimination and sexual harassment; followed by ASMR-like sound piece in the background. Lastly lullaby song that I have created and sang: “now dream, dream your dream little girl”.

GENDER INEQUALITY IN SOUND ARTS/ MUSIC INDUSTRY

I wasn’t sure if the topic and direction I chose for my audio paper is correct. I was worried that my piece would fail to meet the requirements and would be marked very low or not all. I have asked Ingrid about that. Her response was that direction I want to take, can create a great conceptual and creative project, however, the audio paper has to have a documentary element. So, I could consider it as a research question, interview female artists about their experience in sound arts, and bring this idea of the pill and the awareness it could bring to your conclusion. Try to consider how the same issues impact female-identifying artists in sound art, and how they contribute to the design of sound spaces. How would you design a safe sound space for female-identifying artists?
I understood that my concept was lacking a connection between the actual topic and the course I am doing it for. Therefore instead of talking about sexism and discrimination from a female perspective in our world, I have decided to limit it to sound arts and art in general. Ingrid gave me a lot of ideas on how I can deepen my topic. I chose to talk about the different treatment of men and women in the sound arts/ art world, how they deal with it, and what would be if a “realization” pill existed that would make every perpetrator realize what they are saying and doing. I want to limit my work to these three questions as I was afraid I will quickly lose myself while talking about things I have no idea about.
To achieve that I have to make research on how exactly women are treated in the sound/art world, their experience working in the sound field as a female-identifying artist, and what should happen to make the art world as equal and open-minded as I thought it would be. In order to endorse my research I want to carry out interviews with my girlfriends, on the course, so I can develop my topic with female artists that I know in person. I will ask them about their thoughts on the problems, I have mentioned above and about my surrealistic idea of the “realization” pill.

I want to start my audio paper like it would be a start into a trance. I have designed a sound that gives this high, hallucinative energy. Sound, which in my opinion, reminds relaxing, calm sound that lures you to lose yourself and listen to my words. My audio paper, generally, is based on surrealism and throughout the whole piece, a listener will be able to find sounds like ASMR and hallucinative sounds. This particular track I called HALLUCINATION. I designed it using the plug-in, called Cosmos, available in Logic, and finally manipulated it in the software Cecilia. I find space sounds very relaxing and therefore the decision to use this particular plug-in was pretty obvious. My first thought was the sound of planets in the solar system recorded by NASA such as Saturn’s rings, the rings of Uranus, which are unsettling and relaxing at the same time. Link to the recordings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MmWeZHsQzs&t=217s

My inspiration was the American tv show “Euphoria”, in which we can see the world through the eyes of the main heroin, who is a drug addict. As well as a soundtrack created by Labrinth for season 1 of the same tv show.

Playlist for my audio paper called “being woman” you can find here:

https://www.are.na/share/RIUFpMR

are.na was introduced to me by Ingrid and I love how user friendly this website is. I can enclose all sorts of media such as Spotify’s podcast, songs, videos, photos etc.

My playlist consists of:

1. song “Breakfast” by Dove Cameron
2. “The Receipts” podcast on Spotify
3. quotes from Mieko Kawakami’s book “Breasts and Eggs” and Cho Nam Joo’s “Kim JiYoung, Born 1982”
4. youtube video showing how it is to be woman walking on the streets of NYC by Rob Bliss
5. Article about One Child Policy in China by Kristal Sotamayor

My whole artistic work is very minimalistic starting from inspirations, and ideas to the creative project itself. I truly believe in minimalism as less is more and I want to make sure I don’t lose myself in the topic because of an overwhelming number of materials. All of the materials I have enclosed in my playlist talk or show what women have to deal with every day in different countries and different cultures. The song by Cameron Dove shows this surrealistic idea of what would happen if women will become men. How the world will look like if women were successful business women working to keep the house, men were housewives. All of the scenarios when a man is waiting at home with dinner for his wife while she is cheating on him with her colleague and where men are being blamed for attracting women with the way they look.
“The receipts” is honest weekly podcast from women to women. Listeners share their anonymous confessions, from sex life to everyday life problems, to which Audrey, Tolani and Milena responds with thier own opinions and experience. In my opinion, this podcast is a safe space, where no one is judged but listened and honestly answered. There’s so much everyday life dilemmas I can learn about.
Mieko Kawakami’s “Breats and Eggs” and Cho Nam Joo’s “Kim JiYoung, Born 1982” are the biggest inspiration and source of ideas/information for my audio paper. Both of the stories share honest thoughts and without sugar coating put in the wors thoughts I could never put it better. Authors point of view on woman’s life and comparisation to standard of man’s life.
There’s nothing as powerfull as living example. Rob Bliss shows with hidden camera how it is to be a woman and walk alone on the streets of New York. Video speaks for itself and simply prooves that “catcalling” is happening all the time, everyday to women and the way talk to women its not nice or pleasent as they think it is.
Lastly article on one Child Policy in China, shows how female and male existence is perceived and what happens when people try to manipulate mother nature.

I have divided my work into 4 sections. The audio paper will start straight away with the sound piece, which I called “psychedellic”. The reason for the name is that it’s supposed to sound like a hallucination or a high state of drugs. The first part is a simple introduction to the topic, I have chosen for my piece, and what I am going to talk about generally. The second one will be part I called “imagination”, a surrealistic fragment, where I try to explain to the listener what could be if we had medication to stop problems that women have to go through their whole life like sexual abuse, discrimination, rape, talking or treating someone as a sex object and not a human being. My dialogue will be followed by an ASMR-like sound, to lure the listener and make the experience 3 dimensional. 3rd part is “realization”, which basically will be stating facts and how reality looks compared to the beautiful image presented in part 2. Lastly, I will present a lullaby-like song to end my piece with this psychedelic accent.

BEING A WOMAN IN MEN’S WORLD

My first idea for audio paper was how women and their body is seen in different religions all around the world. It’s very wide and deep topic, for which I would need a lot of research.What’s more for my first idea I wan to really work and create something big, that’s why I decided to possibly use it as the topic of my final work in 3rd year. As it’s my first ever attempt with audio paper I decided to go with topic that it’s more familiar to me and would feel more safer. Therefore I choose to focus on women living in work made for men, where the most valued aspect of women’s existence is their body which became a sex object.I was inspired by today’s class exercise, which was about highlighting words/sentences on random page from a book, provided by Ingrid, which are relevant to our audio paper idea. Surrealistic idea of what would it be, to have medication for problems that women go through everyday because of their body. Body that is natural and normal but became a victim of sexualisation and male fantasies. Medication to stop catcalling, sex abuse, sexism, discrimination and toxic pressure to lose virginity and have sex on regular bases. It’s my message to all human beings as the problem starts in our head. We need to stop thinking the way we think and normalize women’s body as it is normal and human just as men’s body, and not a sex object. Why in certain age women are pressured to lose virginity or be sexually active. Not because they want to but, because it is expected from them to be fine with that for the sake of men. Women feeling pain during sex or not feeling any pleasure it’s a normal thing. Women not wanting to have sex, it’s normal thing. Why society thinks it’s weird or abnormal and puts this expectation on women. When they are young no one expects women to use their vagina for sexual purpose, then what’s different when they are older. This is so wrong and toxic. Inequality, because women have vagina, even though till the 7th week of pregnancy fetus has both male and female sex organs counterparts. From the very beginng everyone is equal, why penis is equivalent to human’s worth? DICTIONARY:

MORTAL PART/ CHASSIS

STRUGGLE

WOMEN

MEDICATION

SEX

HUMAN

SEXISM

DISCRIMINATION

CATCALLING

PRESSURE

Today’s lesson, which was a part of module : sound studies and aural cultures”, was all about audio paper. We talked its definition, our point of view and idea for our own audio paper as it is part of our first assessment in this module. My first idea of this kind of piece was that it’s just like writing piece with this difference that you can use your voice and other sounds to support your thoughts, your message and show with sound what cannot be shown on paper. As we were reading Audio Paper Manifesto it turned out this mean of communication is much wider and complex than I though, which at the end made me feel quite unsure what it really is. 

My idea for audio paper was inspired by current book, I am reading called ” Breast and Eggs” by Mieko Kawakami. She talks about small aspect in women life that makes no sense and just shows how women existence is inferior to male existence and important aspects of how female body works or looks is always around men. As I woman I’ve seen a lot, heard a lot and this topic is very important for me. I think it’s not talked enough and we are still exploring topic of women being equal human beings and their body. Part that really made me think, during reading this book, was when Midoriko’s friend Jun said she wants to run Buddhist temple and help people become Buddhist after life, which is only possible for men. Therefore I decided to focus on aspect how woman and their bodies are seen in different religions During class we were talking on the forum about our ideas. Matthias Kispert, with whom we had lecture, advised me to focus on smaller range inside my topic like my thoughts, challenges as a woman and practicing Christian inside my own religion. As I know my religion well it’s better to focus on one religion and maybe in future broaden my topic to all religions, which will need more preparation and theoretical knowledge.

Our group’s idea for the performance revolved around WAR, SOLDIERS, CULT, METAL, CEREMONY. Jose, a week earlier, asked us to write for 5 minutes words that came up to our mind. We would read what we wrote and decide in a team which of these words we would like to use as a base for our idea for the performance next week(which happened yesterday, 25.05).

Besides the topic for the sound, we wanted to create a whole performance, an act. Me, Buki, Jiachen, and Yusuf were sitting in a circle in a center creating sound following a sound that would design Emmanuel as our “leader”. I was using a contact mic and for the sound source, I chose an old retro metallic kettle and stones, as I like the sound of objects touching metallic surfaces. What’s more as a part of an act we decided to put on black pillowcases, which I think was a great idea as it allowed me to create my personal space. Jack was in charge of recording sound and video, Cai designed an image we wanted to display on a wall, to create the right atmosphere and Jose was our DJ, producer. Overall I really enjoyed this performance as not only it was a great experience but also creating sound is a lot better way to learn than dry learning about recording etc.