Room sounds

[Sean Witters <seanwitters@hotmail.com>]

Here's an interesting Cagian ambient sound experience of my own:
Last spring I participated in an Installation/Performance Art Exhibit with 
visual artists Jeffrey Hatfield and Allison Schlegal; the central theme 
was 
observation of the creative environment.  My primary sound source was a 
sampled music box manipulated with a Kurzweil K-2000 and sequenced with 
Vision.  I decided to augment these sounds with ambient microphones in the 
installation space, an idea derived from Cage's assertion that there is no 
pure listening environment and that all ambient sounds becomes a part of 
any 
listening.  These ambient sounds were the audio reflection of video images 
being captured and projected in various parts of the space.  I placed four 
microphones in very visible positions throughout the rooms and ran them 
into 
my various processors and lo-fi pedals.  In my rehersal the room sound 
filled in the cracks around the prepared tapes which I was playing 
asynchronously against each other.
When the show opened and the room filled with people, everything changed.  
Rather than performing the prepared guitar and Rhodes piano parts against 
the tape as I had intended to, I was glued to the mixer peering into each 
room's audio environment looping laughter, or someone's observation, or 
their shuffling feet.  One person said something when entering the space 
and 
I looped and manipulated it the whole time they were there.  Soon, the 
audience caught onto the fact that they were being watched and listened to 
and they began to perform.  This is were it got really interesting, one 
group of people picked up these heavy old oversized bank ledgers which 
were 
a part of the installation and started to read entries "january 2nd, 1946 
Deposit: six hundred and fifty three dollars and three cents...".  They 
did 
this spontaneously as the prepared tapes were playing back a piece using a 
pitch derived from a sample of a spinning coin.  It was incredible!  
People 
started creating spontaneous poetry which I looped, transformed and wove 
into the prepared tape portions.  At the climax of the show the artists, 
who 
were upstairs typing (yeah, I looped that too) in a small booth visible 
through portals and on a video screen, announced that the show was closing 
and began counting down the minutes and then seconds.  I created 
micro-loops 
within the countdown mixed with random ambient noises like paper falling 
(there were papers being dumped from the ceiling).  I didn't record a 
single 
second of the night. I truly wish I had because it was some of the most 
magical spontaneous interaction I've ever experienced.  I temper my sense 
of 
loss with the assurance that those sounds were a result of environment, 
moment, and interaction and should be left in that time and space.


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