To put my works beyond sound arts courses, I put my composition on SoundCloud and hopefully people can reach and listen to my work. Another way to promote myself is performing. As I mentioned in previous blog post, me and Lucas perform in Sound Art Open Mic and Old Church. I would keep looking and aware any performing opportunities in difference platform, such as social media, and other open call organisation, such as Artribbit, Rhizome, Sound and Music, etc.
Another way to promoting is thought internet. I have just created a digital portfolio, a website. It documented my previous works as well as link to SoundClound where people who are interested can listen to my composition. Social Media also helpful for promoting and documents my creative journey, as well as lasted work release.
In the guest lecture earlier in this academic year, one of the partitioner is Daniel O’ Sullivan, and during the lecture, he pointed out that as a artist and musician, he have to found a way to live. Hence, music library could be one for the income sources where musicians and sound artists can sell recording and tracks, and they usually need a quantity of sounds and music to build up their sound library, which may have lower the requirement for submitting tracks. They may still buy the ownership of that sounds, tracks or music. The downside of this type of music/ sound library is the credit of the works. Once they buy the ownership of the works, usually the creator would anonymous, and the credit and any future profit will go to the owner of the sound library. But at the same time, this anonymous way to produce and compose music can liberate the composer, and try out different approaches, since it won’t leave a ‘bad name’ if it goes wrong. The audience can also more focus on the sound itself, rather perceive music with the presented mind of the exciting artist.
To sustain my living as an artist/student, I am working as a part-time supervisor in a restaurant for a year. However, It isn’t related to sound and my interest at all. Hence, I am think to apply and try to work as a sound technician, since I am also interested in technical aspect on venue, studio and theatre. I had a few experiences working as a sound technician, such as a volunteer in the theatre a few months and a stage manager for two shows. In the search for the opportunities as a sound tech for the appraisal, I found most of the vaccines are looking for both audio and visual technicians, which I don’t have much knowledge for visual. They also generally require previous professional experience in this field. Therefore to gain experience as sound technician, some suggested me to try some volunteering on different festival, which most likely to looking for volunteer rather a permanent role. I can also look for junior, trainee and apprenticeship opportunities.
Since I have customer service experience while working in a restaurant, I can also try to working on the retail jobs. I have knowledge on different musical instrument, especially on guitars, pedals and synths. To combine both knowledge together, instrument retail could be another way for living, and that could sustain my creative practice.
In Steve Taylor session, he show us about all the technical and conceptual aspects to live as an artist. He pointed out that artist and freelancer could be seen as a small business. He introduce how artist are categorise as sole trader, and he show us how to do the tax refund. He taught us what can be included or not to included while doing taxes. As a small company, we also need to do financial planning. Looking the previous expenses and plan how your business develops and what finances you need to support that. He also point out that as an artist, it has to be multi disciplinary in order to have enough income to survive and sustain our practice. In the end of the session, he also suggested that we may need to work part-time while you are getting your practice up and running.
To expend the disciplinary, I should transfer my skills and try different type of jobs and opportunities. For example, I can use the field recording skill to work on the film industry for live recorder which I don’t have experience to, but have potential. Or sound for screen or games could be the area I can try and explore. I can also try to create or put more attention on gallery content since my interest is field recording. The soundscape composition could be shape and use in gallery context which I was fully into during this course.
Me and Lucas join the sound arts open mic last year and performed for 15 min which hopefully can draw a little attention of what we are doing. We also played in Sonic Orchard in Old Church which organised by my friend Travis. We will keep find open call or performance opportunities and try to release some of our work in online platform such as Bandcamp.
For other practice, I am keeping the eyes on open call and residency for performance. Since my partner is a performing artist who is interested in physical theatre and improvisation. We are practicing and try to record some of our practice and hopefully will found performance opportunities. We are also working on a short film that can capture an improvisational performance about the maturity. With that project done, we will have to solid portfolio to apply other opportunities, and also summit the short film to the film related open call.
Before I study sound arts, I was considering myself as a musician or a composer, since I am interested music and started to write music and Folk, Blues and rock music seems to talk to me most when I started to learn music. For music, Syd Barrett, Nick Drake and John Lennon inspired me a lot. By listen to their work, the idea of minimalism is interested me most where it gives more space for the audience to wander around the pieces. I went to the arts high school when I was I5 and by that time, I decided music would be my career and I wanted to learn more about. Interestingly, I did not just learned music in there, I also started to explorer different art form, such as performing art, visual art, films. I started to think can we use sound as the medium of art rather than just the conventional way to doing it which called music.
Then during the course, my interested in wild camping and outdoor survival increases, and field recording become a tool for me to capture the experience sonically. Acoustic ecology and deep ecology become the theme of most of my uni works. The most straightforward way to use and interact with recording materials are soundscapes composition, which became my regular practice in the first half to the degree. However, in terms of producing work, I am also interested in improving and performing. During the course, Lucas and I form a duo for noise improvisation. I am playing guitar and effects and Lucas play no-input mixer. We played few gigs and wish to release and perform more after we graduated. In terms of other medium, I had a collaboration project with Miles and Aparna alone with a butoh dancer Mai last year. This increase my interest in improving with dancers and that would be the work that I am planning to do in the future as well. My goal is to combine field recording, natural soundscapes into improvisation performance. That is my artist goal at the moment.
I would like to use the sound of makers concentrated in crafting their work, in an improvisational performance, where I am also in a focused zone. Echoing ‘presence’ in both senses, I present the notion to the audience when they are hopefully very focused too.
The previous blog post included excerpts of the prototype – the improvisation of sounds of crafting. I am quite happy with the decision of using one main sound source. It aligns with the concept of the work of staying focused on one particular event. During the improvisation, I only listened to and manipulated one main sound source to start with. As I re-sampled more and more, it was still originated from the same source. Even for my own learning, re-sampling the same source gave me new perceptions on the sound itself, as well as more ideas on how I can experiment with it. As I am a beginner of Octatrack, sticking to one sound origin made re-sampling and adding on effects much more identifiable than using multiple sources which might end up being chaotic. With one source, I could locate and identify the sound and its quality, then develop.
However, it might not be sonically diverse enough if I only use one sound source in the performance. Even I manipulate, re-sample and add effects, the texture of the sound is still within a certain limit. The outcome is similar to if I manipulate the original track without re-sampling. The re-sampled version could even become blurrier because of the layering up of various effects.
Given the above situations, how can I enrich the sound qualities? Should I incorporate field-recordings of different crafting sounds throughout the improvisation but just use them one by one? Another thing to try could be to record sounds with a wider spectrum and more dynamics so as to allow more versatile use of the sound, producing more variations of manipulation and re-sampling.
Furthermore, for the second project in this course, I am planning to make a feedback instrument. I can potentially record the sound of making the instrument, use the recording and also the instrument itself in this improvisational performance, so there is one more sound element.
If I decided to incorporate sounds of crafting different types of objects, I can also record my course mates’ processes of crafting their projects, e.g. setting up an installation, making a sound sculpture, or building an instrument. It would be great for diversifying the crafting sounds and also for documenting the process of our graduation projects.
I made a few attempts of improvising with the sound of crafting. (Also I find that the word crafting is more accurate than making as it highlights the essence of producing something manually.) In the first few trials, I made use of multi-field-recording of birdsongs and natural soundscapes, adding filter to cut or put emphasis on certain sounds, with spatialisation and re-pitching. Yet, I found that the main focus or ‘protagonist’ would become a bit blurred as the sounds would overlap each other. The emphasis on the sound of crafting would be a bit lost so as the discussion on craftsmanship in sounds. Therefore, I started using one main source of sound. I used field recordings of wood cutting and water boiling by campfire, as well as sounds of pottery throwing retrieved from the internet. I could then focus on manipulating one sound rather than a few sounds.
Wood Cutting Excerpt 1Wood Cutting Excerpt 2
Technically, using one main source of sound was better executed given that Octatrack was limited to 8 tracks. With one main sound source, I could then utilise the other tracks for instant re-sampling and to acquire more neighbour tracks. Neighbour track receives audio signals from the previous track and functions as an add-on effect, providing more effects and control on the audio chain.
It was also my intention to create limitation for myself by using one main source of sound. When I keep re-sampling, it is also a sound of making, as improvising with sound shares the same idea of crafting.
Water boiling by campfire Excerpt 1Water boiling by campfire Excerpt 2
I recently bought an Elektron Octatrack MKII for future projects and performances. The features that attracted me to get one is live sampling and resampling. It has the flexibility to work as an effect processor for external input, and also works as a looper. I can also play a very long sample, which I can use it to play long field recordings and manipulate them in re-time. The live sampling function also allows me to record the present sounds and layer them up with different effects. It also allows me to have more control to play with time. Capture a few second of the present, then it becomes the sonic material for the future.
Although it is a very powerful and flexible machine for live performances, it also has its limitations. Firstly, Octatrack is a relatively old product, hence, the audio processing may not be as good as other newer samplers such as Digitakt. When it processes long samples and re-pitches very hard, it would create digital lagging sounds. It also has a quite limited number of track – 8 tracks only. And compare to the others, again Digitakt MKII (16 Tracks), it is relatively limited. Not to mention, it has much fewer features than an DAW. However, rather than a computer, performing with a physical instrument with limited functions allows me to focus on the sounds that I am playing. Then I may come up with more creative way to play with the sounds.
I am interested in improvising with field recording. In last year collaborate project, Miles, Aparna and I did an improvisational performance with a Butoh dancer, Mai. In the performance, I used field recording to improvise, which I found interesting, and have a lot potential to use field recording only for improvisation. Later in that year, we had a workshop with Aniruddha Das where his practice are using field recording as sample to improvise. Although his approach is more acousmatic (reduce bit depth and sampling frequency), it still shows the possibility of using field recording as the only source for improvisation.
For this project, I am thinking to only use ‘sound of working’ as the material for an improvising performance. Using field recording to capture the craftsmanship zone (the crafter who is intensive concentrate in presence and constantly making) and perform with it, since performances have the same state of mind (concentrate to the presence). Improvising can put this idea further, where the performers constantly listen to the sounds in presence, and interact with it. No matter is compromising, changing or accompany with presence sounds. It is same as crafting, where the maker have keep checking, refining and adjusting the things that they are making.
