Når den store øgle og den lille E.T.-lignende figur synger kærlige arier i autotune, glemmer man, at de ikke er virkelige. To performere fra Oslo-duoen Only Slimes bevæger sig foran skærmen og lægger krop til øglen og E.T., som ikke er brun, men i friske pangfarver, ligesom den fantastiske palmestrand, de sidder på og taler om eksistens. Den absurde avatar-hyperpop-computerspil-opera hedder Afterlife.

Imens er komponister fra hele Norden ved at lande i Glasgow. En har rejst i to dage fra Lofoten, en anden har kørt med tog i 27 timer fra København, en tredje spørger i Danskergruppen på Facebook, hvor han skal holde sit oplæg. Nordic Music Days er spækket med konferencer, koncerter, workshops og sound walks. Verdens ældste festival for nordisk samtidsmusik, som egang gik under navnet Nordiske Musikdage, har siden 1888 gået på skift i de nordiske lande med afstikkere til Paris og London. Nu gælder det Glasgow.

Abstract

The link between data capitalism, listening practices and value creation are central themes in Life Chronicles of Dorothea Iesj S.P.U., a sci-fi film and audio novel produced by ALMARE and curated by Radio Papesse. Set in an imaginary society, the film narrates the many adventures of researcher Dorothea, as she extracts – and smuggles – sound finds from the past, thanks to a sound extracting technology called ECHO; it reflects on the use of archaeological artifacts, archives and memory as instruments of power and control. 

By reviewing and listening to Life Chronicles of Dorothea Iesj S.P.U., and by deploying the lens of sonic thinking through the work and critical stance of artists and authors such as Audrey Amsellem, Berit Fisher, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Robin James, Stephen Neville and Jordan Scott, we aim to question the very idea of ‘generic sound’ in the face of the ever growing datafication of the mundane, in times where we are already ubiquitously listened, voice enabled technologies are now legitimizing listening and recording in domestic settings and sound and voice have been enmeshed in the data logic, and eaves mined at the edge of acoustic space and digital infrastructure. 

Abstract

Locked Grooves are loops etched into records for endless playback. Distinct from regular records, where the needle spirals inwards, this format deploys a record-cutting process that forces each loop to “bite its own tail” (Schaeffer 1952: 32). Chris Cutler likens a loop to the »walking dead«; »an artifact, rather than an action« (2018), concurring with Schaeffer’s reading of »an object that does not evolve, that congeals within time« (quoted in Nattiez 1990: 94). Brian Eno hears loops differently, arguing that »almost any arbitrary collision of events listened to enough times comes to seem very meaningful« (Carr and Challis 2020). 

The opportunities presented by relistening are congruent with views of the composer-as-audience (Lysaker 2017). We might find new life in short loops by listening not only to the recorded audio, but to the medium and methods through which they are disseminated. This paper asks: what if locked grooves are combined and summed? For Techno DJs, they can function as building blocks made “wilfully incomplete” (Sherburne 2004). Informed by my DJ practice and practice-led research, I share historical examples of locked grooves alongside my own loop-based compositions and a new installation work.

Abstract

Consider how provocations such as »If you see something, say something« sonic signage in Toronto subway stations might evoke patterns of social scripts. Similarly, contemplate how wildfire alerts resounding after landing at a city airport could trigger feelings of heightened unease. This essay asks how the generic, as a non-specific aggregate, might ordain sonic signals into forms of social management. More specifically, it contemplates how a becoming-generic of sounds might prime bodies into heightened states. Yet, sounds meant for aligning bodies in certain ways contrast the messiness of the noise of everyday life instantiated through spontaneous social interactions. This leads us to question how everyday social noise might act against becoming-generic messaging. This sonic essay draws attention to the possible becoming-generic of sounds like emergency alerts as an increasing presence in charged neoliberal spaces. It additionally explores sites of noise as interference generated through social bodies that have the potential to interrupt sonic alerts. Through spoken cases of varying sorts, including samples of alerts and field recordings captured in the Americas, we consider how human activity as a possible vehicle of interference serves as a resistance agent against the speculated becoming-generic of alert sounds in public and private spaces. 

Abstract

This audio paper is a provocation in response to the political provocation of generic (Schmidt 2023) aural gentrification. Earlier this year the Danish government considered legislation that would see the restriction of outside service in bars, bodegas and cafes after 10pm. A politician in support of the proposed law said, »We must have a city you can live in: one in which you get a good night’s sleep and can get up and go to work the next day« (CPH Post Reporter 2023). This imperative that the soundscape of urban space should conform to the generic schedules of the forms of life associated with upwardly mobile, white collar professionals has already had a dramatic influence of the the night life of a number of urban centers of culture and counterculture around the world, that mostly sees already marginalized groups pushed out of their communities (Assiter 2022, Román-Velázquez 2022). This tendency looks set to continue with ever more self-righteous health and productivity justifications.

Abstract

The »azan« is the Muslim call to prayer and can be heard in any Muslim country. It is heard five times a day, following a specific recitation of words that are repeated a number of times. Similar to a rondo, the »azan« is a refrain that is heard repeatedly though with slight differences when recited by a different »muezzin« each time. The call to prayer is as generic as it is specific to the Islamic population. As a non-Muslim living in a Muslim country, I ponder upon how the ‘azan’ has entered our consciousness: is it disruptive? Or has the »azan« become a backdrop for banality? What are the rules and exceptions to our mode of listening for or listening to the »azan«? Taken from field recordings of different mosques and other pre-recorded »azan« available, this audio paper investigates the private and public ways in which we encounter or engage with sounds, questioning the particularity of sound events as they enter our acoustic boundaries. 

Abstract

This audio paper focuses on the historical scold’s bridle: a torture instrument invented in the Late Middle Ages and used by European men to silence European women and enslaved Africans. The foundational sound of the paper is a monotonous low-range feedback recording that emerged in an experimental set-up consisting of a scold’s bridle replica, contact microphone, and speaker system. On top of this feedback sound, a voice-over reflects on lessons learned from the object’s performative resonances beyond muting the human voice. First, the voice-over narrates an autoethnographic account of wearing the scold’s bridle replica, which has provided insights about experiences of self-amplification and inward feedback. Second, the paper argues for its feedback sound as a space for critical fabulation: a domain for imagining the ideas, wisdoms, and jokes that bridled bodies could not utter without necessarily filling that gap with words. Third, the constantly humming scold’s bridle as sound one can potentially get used to is related to the gender normative as that which seems natural but is culturally constructed. Lastly, the paper finishes by theorizing gender performativity through a posthumanist frame, for which the performative is conceptualized as resonance emerging in-between the human and nonhuman. 

Abstract

This audio paper explores choric settings of generic voices as a vehicle for contemplating and deconstructing concepts of Being and subjectivity. 
In ancient Greek theater, subjectivity emerges as it is offset against the chorus, the modern subject is heard in the singularity of their voice. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, forms of choric speaking have been explored in different art forms as a metaphor for precarious and fluid postmodern subjectivities, giving the individual subject a clearly discernible voice while making this voice part of a narrative and performative structure that continually recasts the Self as Other, while articulating an idea of Being as fundamentally relational. 
How can generic voices – which are now near-ubiquitous – add to this narrative and conversation?

How are AI-generated voice clones and vocal constructions of subjectivity troubled by each other?

Abstract

This paper explores the complex imaginary and material formation of the sound-word »ping«. A most ubiquitous and generic yet heterogenous sound, it is as much audible in remote marine environments and laboratories as it is in domestic interiors. Its emotional charge can be similarly divergent: as a transduced sonar signal, for example, it gathers oceanic intensities, and modulates them for the ear, producing cross-contextual affect. This amplification of ‘threat’ is discussed in relation to the sound’s banal efficiencies in domestic and workspace spaces (where »pings« aggregate as ambient background) when the background acoustic is subdued (Thompson, 2002). Christoph Cox’s notion of sonic ontology (2018) is applied implicitly by way of his discussion of the signal of the actual within the virtual ‘noise’ that constitutes sonic flux. This frames and relativizes the discourse of signal/noise through an exploration of the sound of »ping« and its elevation as a cultural literary reference (in Samuel Beckett’s prose poem). This isolated generic sound (one that is entirely contrived and manufactured) can, it will be argued, operate on an affective spectrum for the listener from the banal to the horrifyingly significant.