sonic sketchbooks

release date: 11 may 2021

This weeks episode is from a two day sound and drawing workshop I developed and conducted in May 2021 with 3rd year BFA students at the National Art School in Sydney’s inner-city suburb of Darlinghurst. I’m a sessional tutor there, teaching two foundational streams with first year students - introduction to digital media, and experimental and expanded drawing.

The workshop was in two parts - acoustic and electronic - both exploring the often neglected sonic and performative qualities and potentials of drawing, the representation of sound through drawing and various forms of the graphical score, and the diverse sonic textures and musicality of mark-making generated with different implements and media and recorded with different microphone types.

On the first day we devised means of acoustic amplification of the act of drawing and performed improvised ensemble pieces in the tradition of Cornelius Cardew’s Scratch Orchestra.

On the second day, we worked with digital audio recorders and mobile phones to record drawing actions using a variety of microphones, then simultaneously replayed the recordings through portable wifi speakers - one for each student - to create a Cageian sonic ensemble of chance encounter.

I assembled this episode’s series of sketches from recordings we made during the workshop which was staged in a huge renovated 19th century sandstone prison cellblock now used as a teaching space.

Thanks to all the students who participated and especially Lydia, Charlotte and Zane who provided their recordings for me to intermingle and cross-pollinate with my own for this episode.

You can find out more about sonic sketchbooks through the episode guide at sonicskechbooks.net

Artists make their work from anything available. One of the things I use is sound. This weeks program is a new suite of sonic constructs built from recordings of a few of my sonic-kinetic installations and objects.

In 2015 I built 'the 21-pendulum entropophone', an instrument comprising a kinetic-acoustic array of discarded aluminium drink cans collected from Sydney streets, then worked to turn each into a kind of bell.

The altered tins were suspended in series along seven long dowels, spaced to knock together when the dowels moved. Each dowel had three concrete weights attached, forming a long pendulum at each end and a short one in the middle.

Each tins paper-thin aluminium membrane produced a low amplitude sound with a clean tone. Using various sizes and cutting to varying lengths created diverse random microtones.

Activated by visitors’ gentle touches, the instrument produced atonal clattering cascades, rhythmic pulses and ephemeral melodic sequences that gradually decayed to the silence of equilibrium. Thus the name - entropophone.

It is an instrument anyone can play, but the sounds it makes at any given moment are not repeatable.

Heard from nearby, the sounds are like distant moored boats or wandering farm animals. But if the listener brings their ears close to the hanging tins, the sound is suddenly experienced as surprisingly rich and resonant.

The exhibition also included my 3-pendulum harmonograph, a mechanical drawing machine that translates the slowly expended energy of pendulums into detailed geometric drawings.

I made various audio recordings of both works and have used excerpts to prepare a sequence of new sonic sketches for this program.

The episode concludes with a work-in-progress version of a score for voices. In 2019 I was co-curator and showed works in an exhibition that ended with a performance salon on November 30 - International Remembrance Day for Lost Species. For the event, I wrote a cross-species score for voices of humans and forest pigeons, with birdcalls and words derived from an online biologists’ field recording archive. To create an aid for rehearsals with the six-person performance ensemble Reject Theatre Troupe, I used text-to-voice software to develop the composition. This is what is presented here. The work is titled 'Skins in the Museum'.

release date: 20 April 2021

In 1988 I travelled overseas for the first time, taking my Marantz PMD430 stereo cassette recorder, a pair of lapel mics and boxes of TDK SA-42 cassette tapes to make field recordings. I liked the SA-42 tapes because they provided 20 minutes per side and my preference has always been to make uninterrupted 20 minute recordings.

This episode begins with excerpts from a few of the tapes I made in Japan and ends with the complete recording of a walkthrough some of the electronic media art installations staged at the 1988 Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria. One of these installations was Solar Music Hothouse by Fluxus artist Joe Jones.

In this episode I talk with Jeff Doring, an artist, musician, photographer, author, raconteur, conservationist and filmmaker.

In the late 1960s and early ‘70s, Jeff spent time in Papua and New Guinea working as a Nagra-lugging sound recordist, firstly for a New York documentary production company. Shortly after, he returned as director and sound recordist in the making of his feature-length observational documentary ‘Tidikawa and Friends’.

This award-winning project offered the world an uninterpreted filmic encounter with the ancient self-sufficient rainforest lifeworld of the biami or bedamini people, at a moment when colonial impact had only very recently reached them. The principal figure followed in the film is the charismatic seance-leader Tidikawa.

A couple of years ago it was revealed that the original reel-to-reel magnetic tapes Jeff recorded for Tidikawa and Friends still existed.

This program presents just one of those dozens of 100-foot tapes, a field recording of an evening seance in Tidikawa's rainforest garden hut surrounded by village men and boys. Before the recording, Jeff reminisces about that night of 50 years ago, introduces the main people involved and explains some of the context of the project. Remarkably, the quality of this recently digitised tape is as good as the day it was recorded - a testament to the analogue marvel of mid-20th-century sound engineering.

Now in his mid-70s, Jeff has lived off-grid in a bush hut and studio north-west of Sydney for the past four decades. I spoke to him there, with generator evident in the background and surrounded by the calls of his beloved bush birds - grey fantails’ squeaky trills, a wonga pigeon’s insistent monotone pulse, watery drifts of yellow-faced honeyeaters and many others…

You can find out more about Jeff, his films, photography and art practice at the podcast website sonicsketchbooks.net

Sonic Sketchbooks episode 15

interview with Virginia Hilyard

This program is an interview with artist Virginia Hilyard who is a filmmaker, sound recordist, visual artist and teacher with early training in architecture and sculpture.

Virginia has been making and exhibiting work since 1985, and her solo and collaborative works have been shown in cities and regional centres throughout Australia, South East Asia, Europe, the UK, North America and Canada.

Virginia and I were organising members of the Sydney Super 8 Film Group in the 1980s and in the past decade we’ve presented sound art exhibitions together.

I took a train out to Sydney’s inner western suburb of Hurlstone Park to meet with Virginia at her home and to ask her about her work with sound, particularly a series of international and local residencies and workshops she’s undertaken in recent years.

tracklist

03:20 - 05:15 train station, trans-Siberian railway journey 2018

06:05 - 07:25 thunderstorm in Germany

09:40 - 12:20 Ice Sound, 2013

18:15 - 19:55 Picture Start, 2016 - soundtrack excerpt from 16mm film installation

Soundtrack from field recording made in western Iceland. JrF contact mics attached to one of the steel guy ropes supporting the Hellissandur longwave radio mast, one of the tallest structures in northern Europe. Using JrF contact mics, 2013.

20:20 - 23:15 Ice Sound, 2013

field recordings of Snæfellsjökull, a volcanic glacier in western Iceland, 2013. Mix by Sean Hay.

24:40 - 26:10. excerpt from installation somnauralisms, Articulate project space 2017

27:25 - 28:55 - trans-Siberian railway journey 2018

30:55 - 32:10 - Olkhon, late night, a stop on the trans-Siberian railway journey 2018

34:30 - 39:35 - Room Tones - Super 8, stereo 11:30, 2012 - soundtrack excerpts

40:45 - 41:55 - field recording of Regent honeyeater 2019 (Anthochaera phrygia)

43:25 - 45:00 - humpback whales, hydrophone recording

46:25 - 50:35 - excerpt from performance by Virginia Hilyard at Articulate project space, Leichhardt on 30 November 2019, International Remembrance Day for Lost Species

This episode is a composition comprising field recordings I made in Kyoto Japan in 2015.

On the morning of the 2nd of February 2021 - a warm and humid summer day - I caught the light rail tram out to Arlington in Sydney’s inner western suburbs and walked up to Dulwich Hill to the apartment of musician and composer Laura Altman to talk with her about her busy creative life with experimental music.

Laura is a clarinetist and improviser who joyfully explores all the sonic possibilities of that 17th century instrument and mainstay of classical orchestras and chamber ensembles. She is a long time active member of Sydney’s fabled Splinter Orchestra and a musical collaborator in duos and trios with fellow improvisers such as accordionist and pianist Monica Brooks, Berlin-based pianist of the prepared piano, Magda Mayas, guitarist Nick Brooks, saxophonist Peter Farrar, the late Cor Fuhler and many others.

Laura also works to publish experimental music through the label Caterpillar, and is one of the organisers of the online information portal EMUS - exploratory music sydney - a calendar and newsletter for improvised, exploratory, experimental music and sound art in Sydney and surrounds - find that excellent resource at emus-dot-space

Various of Laura’s works are available on bandcamp and you can find out more at her website lauraaltman.net, and more about Sydney’s lively exploratory music and sound art scenes at emus-dot-space

tracklist

04:30-05:40 + 08:05-09:15 GW recording of a Splinter Orchestra performance at Articulate project space, Leichhardt, Sydney 30 July 2017

splinter orchestra bandcamp link

https://splitrec.bandcamp.com/album/mungo

10:30-15:30 Laura Altman & Monica Brooks, ‘concurrent II’ from ‘as is’, a limited edition CD and digital album released October 2012

https://itllbeawesome.bandcamp.com/album/as-is

17:20-28:30. Laura Altman & Nick Ashwood, ‘poltergeist’ from ‘Battery’

digital album released May 2020

https://caterpillarrec.bandcamp.com/album/battery

32:20-42:20 The Great Waitress (Laura Altman, Monica Brooks, Magda Mayas), ‘Sownder’ from ‘Flock’

limited edition CD and digital album released January 2014

https://greatwaitress.bandcamp.com/album/flock

ORIGMA RESERVE TRACKLIST

Origma Reserve is a 10 hectare off-grid bush property surrounded on all sides by healthy Sydney sandstone forest under various titles - Aboriginal Land, State forest, Crown Land, and private ownership including gazetted Conservation Reserves. The property is bounded on the east and west by 100m ridges, and a valley wetland runs south to north. There are relictual rainforest species on the south-facing slopes, swamp mahoganys dotted amongst dense stands of tall paperbarks on the wetland margins, various combinations of ironbark/turpentine and bloodwood/angphora on the hillsides. Signs of pre-colonial occupation, such as grinding grooves and sand-floored caves dot the landscape.

I’ve been making audio field recordings there since purchasing the title to the property in the mid-1990’s, to preserve it from development.

The dominant larger tree species are yellow bloodwood, forest grey gum, cabbage gum, ironbark, turpentine, various angophora and paperbarks. As with the tree combinations, the diverse understory plants vary depending on elevation, proximity to water, cardinal direction (ie sunlight) and underlying geology. It is remarkable how slight the ecological shift needs to be for the botanical complex to vary. There is very little weed invasion, other than along the vehicle tracks and what’s arrives in floodwaters from upstream ‘developed’ properties a few kilometres away.

I’ve documented over 125 bird species there, seven species of microbat were identified by a specialist team, there are various possums including so-called ’squirrel’ gliders, swamp wallabies, eastern grey kangaroos, wombats, bandicoots, innumerable invertebrates and a decent reptilian diversity from tiny geckos to meters long goannas, red-bellied blacks, tiger and brown snakes to huge swamp pythons.

All these lifeforms are entangled in ancient evolutionary networks, reliant on each other in so many ways. Understanding and appreciating the bush is not about the indexical cataloguing of individual species, separated from this crucial entanglement - the tangle IS the thing!

This brief presentation of a very few recorded encounters from the past eight years gives some sense of the brilliant aural diversity of intact Sydney sandstone country. Future episodes of Sonic Sketchbooks will further explore this audio archive.

03:00 - 06:30 summer storm, noisy friarbirds calling, afternoon 22 January 2021

06:30 - 09:15 helicopter triggers golden whistler responses, morning 20 September 2016

09:15 - 13:00 striped marsh frogs on wetland, channel-bill cuckoos calling 03 September 2015

13:00 - 18:25 lyrebird and cicadas 23 January 2021

18:25 - 21:00 eastern froglets calling at waterhole, rainwater running from hillside washaway 14 February 2020

21:00 - 24:00 thornbills and other small birds in a feeding party in a stand of wattles bordering wetland 20 June 2020

24:00 - 26:00 dozens of a bee-fly species in congregation over hot sand 21 January 2021

26:00 - 30:00 unusual social gathering of dozens of gang-gang cockatoos in ironbark trees; bell miners calling in distance 09 December 2012

30:00 - 41:50 yellow-tailed black cockatoos, glossy black cockatoos, eastern whipbirds and many other forest species, surrounding a small billabong, late afternoon - the background white noise is wind blowing across the dense forest canopy of an adjacent hillside, the close knocking sounds are insects landing on plant stems, the recorder was placed on the ground in dense native grasses 05 October 2020

41:50 - 41:30 family group of four origma solitaria, the rock warbler*, bathing in a shallow pool in a cave 25 November 2019

41:30 - 49:15 pair of origma display-calling and hop-flying together 02 October 2017

49:15 - 53:30 group of grey shrikethrush, skirmishing in yellow bloodwood and angophora forest 07 March 2021

53:30 - 01:05:00 lone male lyrebird singing on one of his cleared forest dance grounds, late afternoon 16 October 2014

This program is a recording made in one of my installation works titled 'soundtracker'. A multi-source, multi-speaker listening environment, adaptable for different spaces, soundtracker presents fifteen hours of audio excerpts from field recordings I’ve made over 40 years. Each excerpt is about 6 minutes long.

SOUNDTRACKER is presented in a very dark room, illuminated only by diffuse natural light entering through a circle of white Japanese shoji paper that transmutes the crisp distraction of external views into diffuse luminous presence and shadow-play.

In the darkness, five identical sculptural forms sit on the floor, in a circle surrounding a custom-built 5-sided bench seat. Playback devices and speakers hidden within the cryptic shapes endlessly shuffle-play over 150 tracks to create an ever-changing sonic-poetic atmosphere.

The installation environment alludes to the calming shadow-cloaked spaces within traditional Japanese architecture so well described by Jun’ichiro Tanazaki in his 1933 essay ‘In Praise of Shadows’.

Visitors enter the space from the brighter outside world and find their way to the bench, to sit and listen in the subdued light for as long as the unpredictably variable surround-sound mix holds their interest.

soundtracker provides a penumbral space for reflective quietude in an evocative liminal emptiness.

tracklist

Locus A
0:00-4:30 Bundanon evening 29Oct13

4:30-9:30 Kinetic installation of 150+ hand-worked aluminium drink cans 01Mar15

9:30-16:20 Origma Reserve (OR) 29Oct2012

14:50-18:45 Under northern pylons of Sydney Harbour Bridge 11Aug13

18:45-25:00 Pond, Adelaide Botanic Gardens 22Oct13

25:00-27:40 Raindrops falling from trees onto overturned metal bowls

27:40-31:35 Local rail, Hakone, Japan Sep1988

31:35-34:20 Black cockatoos, OR 06Sep16

Locus B

0:00-3:35 Time-stretch, rain drops in downpipe 06Jan2016

3:35-6:00 Water in gutters, Honen-in temple, Kyoto

6:10-11:05 3-pendulum harmonograph 15Feb2015

11:10-14:45 OR 09Dec2013

14:55-21:00 Evening camp near Tennant Creek, Northern Territory with Warumungu families and cultural workers developing Nyinkka Nyunyu Culture Center 2003

21:00-26:20 Hillside washaway, OR

26:20-31:20 Wooden door, Bundanon residency

31:25-35:30 aleatoric ensemble unit

Locus C

0:00-4:50 School group in garden, Ginkaku-ji temple, Kyoto

4:50-9:45 Diamond dove & fly swarm, OR

9:50-13:50 Time-stretch, striking bamboo Adelaide Botanic Gardens 19Oct13

13:50-17:10 Male superb lyrebird, raindrops falling from trees 03Apr15

17:10-20:35 Time-stretch, contact mic, pen plotter, Monash University 12Dec12

20:35-22:35 Council street-washing vehicle, Redfern

22:35-29:40 Time-stretch, below decks, overnight on research vessel, Shark Bay, Western Australia 2004

29:40-33:55 Local train to Uji, south-east of Kyoto 03Nov14

Locus D

0:00-2:00 Temple bell, wind in trees, Shoren-in, Kyoto

2:00-5:00 Kinetic installation walkthrough 01Mar15

04:50-09:00 Gyuto Monks of Tibet, sand mandala dissolution ceremony, Bondi Pavilion, Sydney 21Apr16

9:05-10:50 3-pendulum harmonograph

10:50-18:00 Water over stones in gutter, Jakko-in temple, Ohara, north-east of Kyoto

18:05-19:35 Stingless native bee hive, OR

19:35-25:30 Pilgrims & monk, chanting heart sutra, Mimuroto-ji, south-east of Kyoto

25:30-26:40 Gang-gang cockatoos, OR 10Dec2012

26:40-32:20 Night, OR 08Feb2014

32:20-33:25 Wharf, Man O'War steps, Sydney Opera House, night 29Aug12

Locus E

0:00-0:45 Tourists, Bondi Beach, Sydney 29Aug12

0:45-5:50 Frogs in dam, night, Dungog, New South Wales 03Oct16

5:50-11:50 Demolition work, Hobart wharves, Tasmania 24Nov14

11:50-19:50 Cicadas, Kyoto Botanic Gardens

20:00-20:15 Pigeon flies away, Origma Reserve, Sydney

20:20-25:30 Evening thunderstorm, OR 05Mar14

25:30-30:15 Raindrops falling from trees onto metal dishes, ground, and deck, OR

30:15-32:45 Time-stretch, rainwater dripping into cave pool, OR 18Jun13

32:20-35:30 Night, black field crickets, OR 16Mar14

OR = Origma Reserve

release date - 10 march 2021

This episode presents audio documentation of a multi-speaker installation made in collaboration with fellow artist Jon McCormack.

A free-standing 4-meter wide timber geodesic dome is skinned with white Japanese shoji paper. Visitors enter the dome to sit at a 5-sided bench seat with 15 speakers arranged in a hemisphere above and around them. Two empty triangles provide views outside the dome, in the manner of a bird hide.

I derived the sounds heard in the dome from an online resource of biologists’ field recordings, carefully extracting and dissecting the spoken-word tape IDs usually considered only of technical interest for researchers - observations of behaviour, records of time, date, place, species, etc. The recordists were dedicated people, usually alone, often isolated in remote wilderness, using technological aids to listen to and archive sounds made by animals with the intention of contributing to scientific knowledge.

My interest is in the poetic potential of this vocal marginalia to creatively explore a largely unattended record of human engagement with the natural world.

The hundreds of vocal fragments were tagged in thematic groupings of date, place, description of action, species naming, and so on. Jon and his team developed a custom-written software to replay randomised selections from this audio-clips library, with randomised spaces of silence between files and randomised assignment of sounds to any speaker in the 15-unit array.

The listening experience is like being in a hide in a forest where birds and other animals' voices have been substituted by human voices declaiming in unpredictable combinations just as ecosystems full of animals do.

Selections from my long-form field recordings of Australian bush locations played quietly in the dome, a nuanced sonic bed for the spoken word elements.

This episode is an unedited recording made in-situ at the University of Sydney's College of the Arts Gallery where the work was installed in the exhibition ‘FIELDWORK: Artist Encounters’ that I curated in 2016.

‘a quivering marginalia' was supported by a grant from the Australia Council for the Arts, the Australian Government's arts funding and advisory body.