Psychotic Sounds O_O

Today Marc played a series of different pulses and tones constructed by various artists. What is interesting about it is that there is the creation of a 3rd tone that isn't really there and is solely constructed by how the listener perceives sounds. This brings us to the concept of how "the listener is always the co-creator of the work" (quoted from Marc) because art is subjective. The following pieces acknowledges this and is created to play with how the brain deciphers sounds.

James Tenney - Ann Rising : as it goes up, it gradually fades out, and can hear the lowest frequency as it loops over and over again...therefore as you're going up, you're actually creates the illusion of going down and no where (Shephard tones)

Maryanne Amacer - Intrac Rontal: difference tones, two pitches very close together= creation of third low frequency in the mind

Ryoji Ikeda - Using minimal pulse with different frequencies to give a sense of how time is passing

Max Newhaus - Radio Net: taking over a radio station and set up a record system recording calls in which he remixes them in real time. The delay between actually speaking and the radio playback in real time eventually mixes many of the callers voices together creating a crowd of voices.

These works relate directly with phase 3 because it distorts what is reality and what is constructed. By knowing how the brain works, the simple record of two high pitched sounds may create a third sound or the illusion of a loop, which is constructed by the listener.

Phase 3 Ideas

After hearing that the captured pieced can be preformed as well, I have came up with an idea for my phase 3 in hopes of blurring the distinction before what is captured and constructed.
For my captured piece, I plan to record something that is obviously constructed so that it will fool people to think that it is actually constructed when it isn't. For my constructed piece, I plan to either to construct the piece that I will record for my captured piece, make additions of sounds on top the the constructed piece so fool the audience that it is playing in the background of a captured piece, or use different 'natural' sounds to make the constructed seem like it is captured.

Phase 3 - Sound

As an introduction to phase three, Marc has given us a briefing on sound with the movie
"The Conversion" by The Director's Company. This movie is interesting because it examines a conversation with three different microphones placed in different positions. It is through careful editing that the main character finds out what the man was saying to his friend in a noisy background. This leads us perfectly to our phase 3 because sound is something that travels around with no exact location where receivers in different location will have a different depiction of it. The way I understand phase 3 is that we are supposed to record 1 sound in its existing environment and create 1 sound which is a constructed with different sounds. The goal is to make both the sounds sound like it is constructed by emphasizing on the layers of sounds to understand the matter more in depth.

I just have one question at this point: Can we record sound using cell phones or do we have to use some high tech equipment?

Winter Term - 1st Class

Today's lecture focused on the topic of surveillance vs. souveillance (watching back). I thought this is interesting because we are used to being captured on surveillance cameras in our public life, but we have never thought about acting and watching the ones that watch us back. It leads me to wonder who is watching you on the other side or if there really is anybody, which relates to the example we talked about in lecture today.

Marc gave us an example of the panopticon, it is jail in which the cells are lined in a circular shape one on top of each other. The jail guards watch them in a tower in the center, where the window spans all the way across. The glass is tinted so the inmates have no idea when they are being watched or if there is anybody watching them. This forces the inmates to behave themselves at all times. This example relates to myself because I know that I am being watched all the time outside from home (sometimes inside my home) if not by cameras, by other people. Souveillance is similar when I look back at somebody that is looking at me.

In real life when my gaze is caught with somebody else, one or both of us would immediate turn away avoiding the gaze. This can be related to the surveillance camera performers as they perform in front of security cameras for the security and surrounding people to see. This is highly unnatural and, similar to my example, the security would like to avoid this from happening again and would rush to the scene and tell them to stop.

Why do people watch people if people don't like to be watched? Is it fun watching other people? - a question to think about